Of Gougnettes and Other Sinful Pleasure
by devozione
Summary: Berlin, 1927. Paige McCullers is an actress that is starting to gain in fame when she starts diving into Weimar Berlin's notoriously sexual night life. Emily Fields, however, has walked a completely different path in life so far. What whill happen when their paths cross and intertwine? Paily AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This fic was inspired by Paige dressing up as Marlene Dietrich for Halloween. Paige in this story is loosely based upon Ms Dietrich, especially during her early, unknown years.

The Berlin of Weimat times might be best known to the English-speaking scene via Christopher Isherwood, who lived and loved there during the early 1930ies. The BBC has made a movie based mostly on his time in Berlin by the name 'Christopher and His Kind'. If you've never heard anything about Weimar Berlin before, it's a nice movie to watch to get yourself introduced to the general atmosphere of this particular period. While it is set later than this story and focuses on male homosexuality, it will give you an impression of just how liberal and sexualised Berlin was in comparison to the rest of the world at that time.

Being German myself, the Republic of Weimar has always been my favourite period of German history – there might be a bit of historical geeking out happening in the author's notes. I generally try to avoid mixing up many German words within dialogue written in English (for it tends to make me cringe) but if anything shows up, it will be in cursive and explained in the author's note at the end of the chapter.

On my tumblr, I will post additional material to this story – historic backgrounds, short stories based upon this main story, what have you. None of it will be necessary to follow the story, though, and I'll explicitly mention it when I do post something over on tumblr.

Without further ado, though, let's toss pain into the chaos of Weimar Berlin!

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_**Berlin, Germany – March 1927**_

Your neck itches as the curtain closes before you. Standing in the spotlight still makes you sweat like an animal, even after years of theatre experience and no matter how much you love sporting tuxedos, they're not the right garment to get sweaty in. Once the applause has faded, you'll be headed backstage to get into more comfortable, less sweaty clothes. Your hair looked a lot more stellar a few hours ago and most of your stage make up has melted off your face. Over all, you feel very worn-out and dirty – but the happy sort of worn-out and dirty. Today has been the premier of the second play in which you scored the female lead and in conclusion, you have to admit it all went very well.

Over the last three years, your German has improved to a level where people have trouble telling you were not actually born here and this has opened up all sorts of new opportunities for possible employment. You have spent most of your 20ies playing minor roles in local theatres but finally, all the work you have poured into shaping your talents and perfecting your act have paid off. Your career is gaining in momentum by the month and paying your rent has long since vanished off of your list of problems. Making a living as an actress is something you have mastered by now, the only thing left to master is becoming famous as an actress – and you're positive that you've taken another step towards that goal tonight.

The distant sound of clapping grows weaker and finally comes to a stop. This is your cue to leave and get refreshed; you swivel around on your heel as a sign of your happy mood and start walking towards the back stage area. A small, joyful whistle begins to form on your lips as you playfully shrug the top hat off your curly hair and let it wander around your shoulders on your outstretched arms. Indeed, you are nothing if not jolly right now – quite probably the happy delirium-like state that follows the ecstasy of being extremely tense. The door of your dressing room down the hallway is already in sight; you loosen the bow tie around your neck and wipe your sweaty neck clean.

You are but a few steps short from reaching the door when somebody suddenly blocks your way. First, you almost run head-first into them, then you abruptly stop your movement and find the time to be surprised by the sudden blockage in your way. The blockage turns out to be one your co-stars, who is now laughing heartily at you.

"Why, Paige, I didn't mean to scare you to death! Don't look at me like you've just seen a ghost, will you?"

"Maren, what are you doing here? I really wish to go to my dressing room now, I smell and feel like a gym."

"Nonsense, dear, you look just dapper. And you don't have time for your dressing room, anyway. All of us are celebrating the success of our first show tonight! We know the most extravagant club, you will be intrigued and delighted – I promise. It's going to be outrageous!"

"I really do not know, Maren. The show was really grand, but I feel exhausted. I probably won't be a lot of fun to have around. Maybe I'll even scare off the other patrons of that club, disorderly as my appearance is now. I haven not even taken my tuxedo off!"

"Listen to yourself! Paige, you'll have to accept that you're now a star in Berlin; you're a person of fame. If anything, you will attract patrons. And that tuxedo is so very lovely on you, you might just consider making it your trademark look."

Before you can raise your voice in protest again, Maren has her fingers securely around your wrist and drags you along with her towards the theatre's back exit. The exterior of the young woman – a short, lean frame adorned with a _Bubikopf_ haircut and a pretty Charleston-style dress – belies the force she is currently exerting on your arm. Helplessly, you stumble after her, still too dumb-founded to do anything to defend yourself against this abduction.

Outside the theatre's back door, most of your colleagues are already waiting for you; they applaud and call and whistle for you as you step out of the door. You smoothen out your tux and smile at them, trying to focus on all the praise they have for you instead of the anxiety the prospect of the night fills you with. Shy surely is not the first word you'd use to describe yourself with but you have been so focused on building a career for the time you've been in Berlin that you have rarely if ever found time to explore its famous night life. At least this short-coming of yours is going to be corrected tonight, you shrug to yourself, and allow your colleagues to sweep you up in their enthusiasm and take off with them in the direction of a yet unknown location.

The cab ride has already taken quite a while but you cannot spot anything that even remotely resembles a night club in the streets that you pass through. Somewhere in the back your mind, you're beginning to worry whether this is actually an abduction rather than a night out with friends. Lost in thought about possible escape routes, you're startled when the cab you're occupying together with Maren and two male actors comes to an abrupt halt. The others are already shuffling out while you're still trying to process things. The street you stopped on is completely empty, only very dimly-lit and pretty certainly does not belong to any entertainment district or amusement mile.

"Are we there?" you manage to stutter out.

"Almost", Stefan answers you. He is a young actor with big, sensitive brown eyes, thick eyelashes and high cheekbones – if you were inclined to date one of your colleagues, which you aren't, Stefan would probably be on top of your list. "This is as far as the cab can take us."

A confused look does not leave your face as you finally get out of the car and hand the driver a few _Mark_; way more than the fair was actually due but you felt like some extra money would prevent any questions he might ask. Like why a young, pretty actress of some reputation decided to dress in a tuxedo and let herself be dragged onto this somewhat creepy looking street with intentions that aren't even clear to herself. The driver tries to shower you with gratitude but you're hurrying after your friends who have already started walking before he has the chance to do so.

When you have caught up with them, they're in the process of entering a dark courtyard. Your confusion is at maximum now – are your friends actually trying to abduct themselves or what is going on? Then you spot the gate they're steering towards; it bears a toilet symbol and you presume that some of them simply want to relieve themselves before diving into night life. Maren reappears at your side, snaking her fingers around your wrist again albeit with muss less force this time.

"Prepare to have your mind blown, Paige."

"Huh? I assumed we were just going to let someone use the lavatory here."

"Oh, Paige, you have much to learn. The good night clubs are the ones that are not openly visible to everyone, so only those who really know how to make themselves merry will enter those clubs."

"So we're going to a secret, exclusive club? How will I even be allowed inside; surely they will notice that I do not go to clubs and have no experience with them!"

"Don't worry, don't worry. They will find you plenty suitable to enter, just trust me."

The conversation does very little to calm your nerves or the slightly sick feeling that is starting to form in your stomach. You haven't known any of the colleagues that are currently embarking upon adventure with you for a long time; you met most of them at the first rehearsal for your current play. This seems to be too short a time to build up the amount of trust you wish you had in any of them. In the face of Maren's amiable yet somewhat devilish smirk, though, you have to realise that you have run out of rational reasons to object to this extravaganza.

After passing through the first gate with the toilet sign – after which there is no toilet to be found – your crew passes through two other gates, just as unassuming as the first one but without any toilet signs. Finally, you spot before you a door that looks like it may actually lead somewhere – and you are correct in your assumption, for your posse squeezes into the narrow entrance. Once you have stepped through the door, you almost fall to your death – or so you think – because right in front of you, the steepest stair case you have ever seen in your life leads down to a lower level and you were one step away from tumbling down all the way.

You very, very cautiously manoeuvre down every step and contemplate how in the last 25 seconds, you have found a whole new respect for something as simple as stairs. Maybe one day, this respect will save your life – if you ever encounter this stair case's likeness somewhere else again. Hopefully you won't, though, because death traps such as this should be all sorts of illegal and is not law-making one the Germans' favoured past times?

Because you are so very occupied with your deep thoughts on stairs, it almost escapes your consciousness when you actually do arrive at the lower level in one piece. Before you the hallway widens to form what you assume is the ante-chamber of the club you're trying to enter. You have not entirely made it into the chamber when you're already inclined to stumble backwards out of it. There are two huge people guarding the entrance. At first look, they look like teenage boys but a closer look reveals that they're actually large, muscular woman in male worker clothes. The cigars that they're smoking fill the whole chamber with a stinging smoke.

Another one of your colleagues carefully presses a hand against the small of your back to keep you from fleeing. Maren, courageous and forwards as ever, is the first to step up to one of the door guards. The woman gives Maren a very critical once-over and then gives her small nod. Maren bends forward as much as her dress allows it and the seated woman gives her a kiss. Even if Maren and you are not the closest friends on this earth, you are about to jump in and save Maren from what molestation she might suffer. Maren, on the other hand, does not seem to be bothered by the process at all – she gives you a wink along with an encouraging smile and beckons you to come over.

Terror spreads through your insides at the idea of having to be kissed by a stranger to get into this elusive club – a woman no less! If there was one thing that Maren had been very honest about, it was that this club was going to be an outrageous place. Stefan is the next one to step up the ticket table the two grim-looking guard women are situated behind. Both women seem to examine him closely but seem to find no fault with him, for they wave him through and he proceeds without any kisses.

Maybe the same thing will happen to you, you hope. Maybe they'll just not find you kiss-worthy and you'll simply be able to walk through, just like Stefan was. Another young woman belonging to your theatre group steps forward – she gets a nod and a kiss, just like Maren. You're beginning to see a pattern there: the ones who get waved through are spared, the ones who get a nod are not. From the other side of the room, Maren whistles to get your attention. She once again beckons you to come forward and pass the guards; her smile and wink are definitely alluring invitations, you have to admit.

Paige McCullers is no coward, you think and try to let the words sound firmly in your mind as you pluck up your courage and take a few steps towards the ticket table. The smoke only grows more intense the closer you come to the intimidating women, and you actively have to fight down the urge to cough. You are very aware of the two pairs of eyes that start to muster you from head to toe, probably searching for a reason to not let you in – possible reasons include, but are not limited to, how unclean you currently are and the curious clothes you're sporting.

"A _Dodo_, eh? Haven't had one of them in here for a long time."

"Sorry?" You have no idea what the woman just called you. Isn't a dodo some kind of bird?

"Excuse my friend," you hear Maren chime in from the side, "it's her first time. She would make a very fine _Dodo_, though, would she not? She is so sophisticated, too, an actress!"

One of the women makes a sound that you suppose is meant to be affirmative towards Maren, then returns her attention to you. She gives you one last once-over and then nods. A nod. You know what that means. And you dread what it means. You helplessly search the eyes of Maren but she only seems to be cheering you on silently. Gulping down a huge knot that has formed in your throat, you slowly begin to bow down and prepare for the worst. The intimidating woman that is closer to you leans in for the kiss and you instinctively close your eyes, hoping that if you don't see the kiss happen you might not register it all.

Everything is quite the opposite, though. You do register the kiss; you register it with all your senses safe for your sight. And quite in contrast to your expectations, it is not the worst. Certainly, the woman reeks of her cigar but the feeling of her lips on yours is actually very soft. You had expected a kiss from a woman like this to feel very much akin to a right hook to the jaw – not like the velvety, warm feeling that now spreads over your lips. The woman has already pulled away and is back to her grim-looking self when you're still busy letting your eyes flutter open and trying to remember how to stand up and walk.

"Impressive, huh?" Maren is at your side before you even realise it, dragging you towards Stefan who is waiting at the actual entrance door.

"Uh, yes, I'd say so." The intensity with which your face reddens belies your verbal response.

"They're trying to find out who is opposed to lady-loving with this little test. Because this club is all about lady-loving. And you are not against that Paige, now are you?"

"I suppose I am not. I did pass the test, after all." That feels like an understatement. You enjoyed the test far, far more than you'd like to admit. Now you're very actively trying to push it out of your mind and just hope that the rest of your troupe passes quickly so you can finally enter the club and occupy your mind with other things.

Within the next minute, everyone has passed and you're eagerly pushing open the doors to the club itself. If you have been dragged out this far, you might as well enjoy yourself. The first impression you get is actually pretty disappointing. Before you lies a big room, filled mostly with a few tables at which customers are enjoying their beers. The walls are mostly bare, and there are no signs of anyone trying to set up something akin to décor in the place.

You muster the two handfuls of customers more closely. There are a few couples, probably married ones, around ages 30 to 50. Their attires make them look as if they had stumbled upon the club by accident after getting off a train, and you're fairly sure you overhear one of the gentlemen speaking in British English. There's a group of young women, clothed in a wide array of wardrobes from girly dresses to suits with leather ties and fedoras. They are all crouched closely over a table, seemingly immersed in some sort of game. Other than that, there are few single older men that look around the room searchingly, young men with notepads (journalists maybe?) and single women at the side line, adorned in heavy make-up and provocative skirts.

In the dim light, your eyes find a stage. The curtain is closed, and has very strange holes in it that do not seem to be random tears. In front of it are some chairs and things that indicate that a small band might play here, but for now the place is entirely without music. All in all, the club seems pretty ordinary to you, and bears no signs of the extravagant adventure that Maren promised you. Before the pout can form on your lips, your colleague is by your side again – as if she overheard you thinking of her.

"The main room is nothing to look at, is it not?"

"No … not especially." You choose your words carefully; albeit your disappointment you do not wish to offend anyone around you.

"Yeah, then wait until we get to the back. This main room here, it is for the common customer, the tourists, the voyeurs, what have you. We, on the other hand, are the pinnacle of their patrons. We're young, we're pretty, we're famous – or at least you are. We'll have the back room almost to ourselves."

A wave of relief washes over you because Maren shares your opinion on the main room. You're also very intrigued by the promise of this elusive back room – what will await you there, you wonder? Maren once again drags you behind her towards a small passage-way. Once you have passed it, the interior changes quite drastically. The walls are adorned with erotic murals, depicting various acts of Sapphic love; below them on the walls are cut-outs of famous actors and of a beautiful blonde woman that you don't recognize. The beer tables are replaced with proper tables with chairs around them. Upon everything else, the people in this room are different from the main room. There are almost no males, and the women seem … different. A lot of them are wearing pretty heavy but not tacky make-up, much like the ones in the main room.

The important difference, though, is that all of the women in here are attractive. Very attractive. The sort of attractive that confuses you – you don't know whether to be envious of these women for their looks, or whether you want to desire them. As soon as the thought pops up in your mind, you wish to swat it away like a fly. Inappropriate thoughts about other women unfortunately are nothing new to you – they have followed you around for quite a bit of your adult life and you have yet to manage to shake them off. You really cannot honestly label it a phase when it continues over several years and only seems to get worse the more you try to indulge in dating handsome men.

Before you can fall into a prolonged phase of self-hatred and confusion, Maren leaves your side and walks towards one of the pretty women. She seems to recognise Maren, as her face visually lights up when she notices Maren approach. They hug each other and the unknown woman walks a pair of fingers down the cleavage of Maren's dress. The way in which your eyes widen at the sight must be pretty comical, for Stefan next to you breaks out in a fit of chuckles.

"Paige, my dear, you are one impressive example of staying home too much if I've ever seen one. This is Berlin, the _Hauptstadt_, the one city in Europe where everybody is free to love as they please! You ought to loosen up a bit and let go of whatever moral baggage you may have brought with you from England!"

You blush because your face must be really easy to read to anyone around you. But you do not even know whether this open display of Sapphic affection confounded you because never have you seen people be brave enough to display it before – or because you wish you were the target of such affections. To this day, your own sexuality remains a mystery and a difficult topic to you – you have only had relationships with men so far, but it is clear which sex you are more frequently attracted to. What you do not know is what that means – does it mean you are actually a lesbian or does it just mean that women intrigue you in a special way that need not be sexual?

Only now you notice that a waitress has made her way into the back room and is waiting to take your orders. One of your colleagues chimes in before anyone can answer her personally and loudly requests she bring champagne for every member of your troupe. Although you are not the heaviest of drinkers, a glass of champagne seems like it would be a nice beverage in the face of celebration, so you absentmindedly nod your approval. A few of the tables are pushed together and you take seat just opposite Stefan, with two of your young colleagues flanking your sides.

Maren has now left her girlfriend (or whatever these two may be) and joined you at the your table, so you have nothing left to stare at. You engage in idle conversation with your cast mates until the champagne arrives. Several waitresses appear and set upon your table a number of buckets filled with ice, resting in each one are two bottles of champagne. Everyone receives a fine champagne glass and your colleagues start to joyfully fill everyone's glasses to the brim. Something tells you that this evening won't end with one glass of champagne.

You're three glasses into the champagne bottle resting between you and Stefan when your brain finally comes around to realising that you're actually having a really good time right now. You're talking animatedly to cast mates you barely knew before tonight, your tuxedo has stopped bothering you and you have gone at least twenty minutes without worrying about how you smell. It really has been a pretty long time since you last went out with friends, and even longer since the last time you got drunk with friends. You might get used to it, you muse to yourself and fill up your fourth glass.

"It's almost midnight, ladies! Prepare for the Black Mass!", a blonde woman you haven't noticed before shouts.

"The what?" you confusedly ask the girl sitting next to but she just giggles in response.

A waitress has appeared and is passing out glasses with a brown, clear liquid in it. You also get handed a glass and you carefully smell its contents – some sort of Brandy, perhaps Cognac you conclude with your stable but not extensive knowledge of liquors. Once everybody holds a glass in their hands, the people around you all stand up and move to the main room. You hurry after them, still without a clue as to what is going on.

In the middle of the main room stands a woman, maybe the most impressive woman you have ever seen. She is tall and of muscular build; her attire resembles that of an Indian warrior and she wears atop her hat a great black hat. Every single patron of the club gathers around her, with the exception of a few men who duck to the sides.

"That is the amazon," Stefan explains, "what she tells you to do, you do."

Before you can ask any further questions – and you have a lot them – the band that must have gathered on the stage while you were in the back room begins to play a song that everyone except you seems to know by heart. The 'amazon' starts to lead a dance around the room and everyone follows, like a line-dance. You notice that by now, the club seems to be filled with almost exclusively women who belt out the lyrics to the song the band plays as if it was the anthem of their favourite sport club. They swing their glasses high through the air and take courageous swigs of the liquid.

Because you have nothing better to do with yourself, you try to join the dance without making a complete fool of yourself and take careful sips of your drink. The liquid burns down your throat like fire and you wonder how much the other women have had to drink to be able to swallow whole mouthfuls of it.

"Kneel!"

It is the first time the amazon has opened her mouth, and what comes out of it is nothing short of a shouted order, like one might expect it in the military. The aggressive tone scares you a little bit, so you are quick to fall on your knee just like everyone around you.

The amazon smiles when she sees that every single person in the room except for her is on their knees, obviously pleased with how obedient you and your fellow club-goers are. She strolls around the room a bit, eyeing some of the kneeling patrons, before she yells her next order.

"Stand!"

The sound comes so surprisingly, you almost jump up to the ceiling instead of just to your feet and you lose a good amount of your liquor in the process. Thankfully, you didn't like it anyway. You dare not move a finger while the amazon keeps making her rounds. This ritual is most curious, you think, but you seem to be the only one around not accustomed to it.

"Drink!"

You honestly would have preferred falling on your knee again over this order. With a certain disgust, you stare into your glass where a puddle of brown liquid still remains, staring back at you and daring you to just throw it back in one swift move. So you do, but immediately regret your decision. Your mouth is one fire and your stomach convulses as if you were to vomit the very next second. You resist the urge, though, trying to steel yourself against it – and within a few blinks of an eye, the feeling subsides. Throwing up in the middle of everyone's dance would have been beyond embarrassing and you're glad you managed to avoid this fiasco.

"Now fondle! Fondle to the right!"

What? You must have misheard that, right? The amazon cannot seriously be asking you to … ? Or can she? Everywhere around you, patrons move impossibly, inappropriately close to each other – they start to form a circle and you're being dragged into it. To your left is a young girl with wide, innocent eyes that seems to be asking your permission with looks before she moves in close to you. You only stare at her in confusion and then send a spontaneous little prayer to above when you feel her hands on your shoulders, massaging you very gently from behind.

Then you turn your eyes to your right where you presume a much greater challenge awaits you. The person to your right is one of the attractive women with the heavy make-up. You gulp heavily because there are probably few people in the room that you want to fondle less than her; still the very idea seems entirely impossible. This is a massive overstepping of personal boundaries and you cannot just force yourself onto another woman, part of a game or not. The attractive woman seems to be of a very different opinion than you, though – she looks at you through her eye-lashes and her voice is a husky whisper when she raises it.

"Come on, don't be shy. I've seen the way you look at me; there is no shame in admitting to wanting me."

Your stomach plummets worse than before when you swallowed all the liquor. By now, this liquor seems to have made its way to your brain, because you are quick to cast aside all the doubt in your mind and lift your shaking hands until they rest at the woman's side. They begin to make their slow way over the woman's sides, over her shoulders and down her front onto her stomach. Never in your life have you felt more detached from your own two hands; they seem to be acting on their own accord without bothering to get consent from your mind. The woman softly sways under your movements and leans back into you, which doesn't make it easier to resist the growing realisation that you might be enjoying this whole scene.

The band starts to play another song and suddenly, everyone scatters into the main room again – as if the most curious, enticing ritual had never taken place. You're still in a trance when the two women to your sides have long left you standing dumb-founded in the middle of the room. The amazon is nowhere to be spotted anymore. Only the empty glass in your hand reminds you that this has not been just a dream.

"Look who just got her initiation to the adventure that is the _Toppkeller_! I told you it was most intriguing and did I promise too much?" Maren appears out of nowhere to bring you back to reality.

"No … no you didn't. It-It's curious indeed. Is that … thing? The Black Mass? Is it something people do more often here?"

"It happens every day at midnight and it's one of the things this club is famous for. There really is no better way to get to know like-minded people in this city!"

You start to wonder whether by 'like-minded people' Maren means lesbians and whether you are going to be seen as one now by perfect strangers. Would it be so bad to be seen as a lesbian? Would it hurt your career?

"Let's get back to the others! Now begins the really merry part of the evening – the band plays up, and everyone mingles, and there will be fun games to be played!"

Maren is ever so excited and you gladly follow her to the back room where the rest of your colleagues have already gathered to get their next glass of champagne. You decide you need one of those as well – one at the very least. After the Black Mass, no one retakes their seat; instead, everybody stands now, your troupe mixing with the other patrons of the club. Even the made-up women who looked so calculating on their seats at the side of the action before are now mixed with your group – a fact that you do not mind at all, for you still cannot decide which one of them is the prettiest.

The games that Maren promised turn out to be exactly one game in the end – spin-the-bottle. Lesbian spin-the-bottle for the most part. You watch with interest as two of the attractive women join in a passionate kiss when the bottle comes to a stop. It is a sight to behold for sure and for the first time in your life, you are in a place where the question whether it is appropriate matters not. In this place, everyone really can love just the way they want, sheltered from the judgemental world around them.

"Join us, sister, join us!" one of the girls playing spin-the-bottle before you hollers and you immediately turn as red as a tomato. You feel like a young girl that talks about kissing a boy with her friends for the first time, all flustered and shy. Throwing back the last of the champagne you have left in your glass, you settle between two of the women already playing. Playing one round to not seem as if you weren't enjoying yourself cannot hurt, and then you will promptly escape the game again.

Under the cheers of your fellow players, you grab the bottle that rests atop the table you're crowded around and give it a firm spin. Everyone watches anxiously as it spins, at first quickly but then losing speed until it points at a girl from your theatre troupe. She giggles and closes her eyes. You give her a quick peck on the lips and are pretty proud of yourself – you would have guessed yourself to have much more of a problem with kissing people you hardly know. The amount of alcohol amassing in your body right now might play a very central role in easing you into the idea of kissing other girls, though.

After your lips have parted from the other girls' and everyone has applauded you, you try to get away from the table again – but to no avail, the people standing to your sides trap you in their round. You watch the next person take their turn, and then the next one. Just when you're beginning to relax, a third person spins the bottle – one of the women with make-up. You just stare in terror as the bottle comes to a halt and its neck points directly at you. The woman leans over the table and grabs you by the collar of your tuxedo jacket. Her eyes are dark and sultry as she starts to kiss you – you freeze for a second but then slowly get into the kiss. You have just allowed your eyes to flutter close when she pulls away, giving you a mischievous wink as she does. If it already feels this good to kiss a girl as part of a game, what will it feel like to kiss a girl in honest?

A few kisses later and you have gotten used to the idea of playing lesbian spin-the-bottle. You have kissed a good part of the women in the room and everything is still good fun. Maybe kissing girls is not always followed by the moral fall-out that seems to happen in your head every time you do. Both the champagne and the lady kisses have thoroughly gotten to your head as you excuse yourself from the game to use the bathroom. You sway a little on the way there and still have the sense to think that you probably should not have much more to drink, lest you want to wake up with a great headache in the morning.

You're just done washing your hands when another person enters the bathroom. Quite certainly, you have seen her before this evening – she belongs to the collection of attractive women. Among all these attractive women, she stands out because she looks very different from them all. Her face is very exotic, Asian in appearance and her smooth skin has a bronze tone. Like many of the other woman, she sports a lean leather tie and an interesting skirt. It would end just above the knee, if it wasn't for its upturned corners that allow a provocative stretch of leg to show below it. You catch yourself staring at her about half a minute after she has caught you. In embarrassment, you fake a cough and look to the side.

"Hi," she says softly. In response to the greeting, you immediately turn your gaze back to her. She has taken a cautious step toward you and stares right back at you.

"Hi," you answer and it comes out in a whisper.

"Are you new around here?" Now she is standing right in front of you with her hand resting just beside you on the edge of the sink.

"Not to Berlin, no … Just to its nightlife." It's hard for you to keep your look trained on her eyes when everything about her is so pretty.

"Mhh," she makes an appreciative hum, "I hope you're enjoying it. There is nothing this city's night life cannot offer, you know?"

Your head is completely swimming, so you just nod in appreciation although you have no idea what exactly she is trying to tell you. She lets her hand brush slightly by your hip as she makes her way to the toilet stall.

Back in the middle of the still on-going party, you find Maren and motion towards the exotic woman just as she exits the bathroom.

"Who is she?" you ask in a low voice.

"I don't know her personally but she is one of the _Gougnettes_ here. Why do you ask?"

"A_ Gougnette_? What is that?" You forego Maren's question.

"Oh Paige, there is so much you still have to learn about the world." Maren answers mysteriously.

Although you raise a questioning eyebrow, she will not elaborate any further. It's not much later that some of your colleagues decide to call it a night and take off. You join them and drunkenly make it back to your apartment in the conviction that you have crossed off enjoying Berlin's night life of your to-do-list. This doesn't mean you won't enjoy it again, though.

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**A/N:**

[Bubikopf] Short hairstyle, closely related to the bob. Very popular among young woman during the 1920ies.

[Mark] Short for Reichsmark, the currency of the republic of Weimar since 1924. 1 M is about 4,30€ right now or 5,60$.

[Dodo] Weimar Berlin classified its lesbians into many, many subcategories; Dodos are one of them. Dodos are tuxedoed, sophisticated power women who often like to sport monocles and horn-rimmed glasses. Their dark hair is coiffed gypsy-style with loosely hanging locks and their faces are powered white. They mostly pair with _Garconnes_, stylish young women with pencilled eyebrows sporting chic male French fashion.

[Hauptstadt] German word, simply means 'capitol'. Mostly outside of Germany, though, this word became Berlin's nickname, emphasising the central role it played both in Germany and in Europe as a whole back then.

[Toppkeller] One of the most well-known lesbian clubs in Weimar Berlin. I'll probably pst more about it (it is an actual, genuine location!) on my tumblr by the time I'm done with the second chapter.

[Gougnette] You'll find out what that means as soon as Paige does ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Hey everyone! I'm incredibly sorry it took me so long to update. I ran into some unexpected health troubles this month and as a result have been pretty out of the loop with most things going on in life. Thankfully, I'm much better now and should hopefully not take this long to update ever again. Be sure to scold me if I do!

As I already said on at the end of the first chapter, I have compiled some information on the actual, real life Toppkeller over on my tumblr. If you want to read it, go here post/38306137299/the-toppkeller-more-most-of-the-descriptions-of

Following from here will be individual responses to guest reviews, so feel free to skip past this paragraph if you didn't leave a guest review!

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**Sazar, BSP and anon: **Thank you all very much :) I'm relieved to see I'm not the only person interested in Weimar night life after all.

**cici:** Oh man, did I ever disappoint you in updating fast … Once again, I'm sorry. As for clubs like this today … I've only been to Berlin a few times, so I can only speak for it with limitations. I live in the Rhineland, which is nowadays regarded a mecca for homosexuals in Germany. While we certainly do have gay bars, clubs, events and bars here (mostly focused on male homosexuality if you ask me) – nothing compares to the astonishing number of lesbian venues in Weimar Berlin and nothing comes close to them in their colourful outrageousness (not on the heterosexual front either for that matter).

And I have actually seen Tipping The Velvet (more than once, I think) but I never had this association at all. But now that you mention it, I can totally see it. As to your questions, they cater to whatever seems lucrative and worthy of their times ;) Paige has kissed a whole bunch of girls that evening and I'm not sure if she herself knows the answer to your question so very exactly at this point.

**Del:** I'm sorry the second person perspective confuses you :( Its use has a very definite reason in the context of this story, though, and you will realise later on why the second person perspective is so significant to this story. If it's any hope to you at all, not the entirety of the story will be told in second person perspective.

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With a groan, you turn over and bury your head in whatever surface is beneath you. You're not entirely sure where you are and how you got there; the only thing you are sure of is that you do not currently want to be there. Or anywhere for that matter. You just wish you could pass out again and temporarily forget about your existence.

It doesn't seem like your wish will come true – you are very much awake by now and begin to become aware of your surroundings. You're lying face down on the bed in your own bedroom. The sheets are in a mess all over the small room and you're still dressed in your half-unbuttoned tuxedo shirt. You suspect that you actually tried to take off your clothes before you collapsed into bed last night but gave up half-way through.

Another groan makes its way out of your throat as you manage to straighten yourself into a sitting position. The room sways lightly before your eyes and you press your lids shut to not get nauseous by the view. Your stomach feels like you put it through hell-fire last night, the back of your head is pounding and the insides of your mouth seem to have been stuffed with cotton balls. You think you have gathered enough clues to self-diagnose yourself with a hangover.

You're not entirely sure on your feet as you stagger over to the kitchen, fill a jug with water and down it in under a minute. Now you have an over-filled belly in addition to your other complaints but at least you won't die from dehydration. In your bathroom, you roam your small medicine cabinet in hopes of finding something to ease the pain – and you get lucky, for you still have a bottle of _Aspirin_ there. You swallow two spoonful of it with even more water and hope that this is enough to make your head stop hurting without killing yourself in the process. Dosages of anything were never your strong suit.

Although you are incredibly hungry and feel as if you haven't eaten in decades, you chose to forego breakfast (What time was it, anyway?) because of all the water in your stomach. Maybe, if you were lucky, you could manage to continue sleeping until the effect of the Aspirin had fully kicked in. When you make your way back into your bedroom, you notice how stuffy the air in there is. It smells of alcohol, and sweat, and stale cigar smoke. You rip open the bed room window and wonder how you even managed to sleep a single minute in this atmosphere. This time around, you are successful in taking off your clothes and slip into a nightgown before rearranging the haphazard bed sheets.

You feel a bit more proper now and try to cuddle in between your sheets to comfort yourself. The cigar smell that still lingers around you reminds you of last night and how you acquired your hangover. You're pleasantly surprised to find that you still remember most of last night fairly clearly, safe for the earliest hours of the morning. Starting from shortly before you left the venue, your memory starts to get foggy and you would have to take a few guesses to reconstruct how you got home. All the really important about last night are clear and crisp in your memory, though, and they are what causes you to blush all by your lonesome right now.

All the outrageousness, the alcohol, the games, the kisses – the fondling! The deep blush on your face is accompanied by a devilish smirk. While the memories of last night are most certainly outside of what you have learned to think of as normal, they are nowhere near unpleasant. Maybe it is because there are still remains of yesterday's champagne in your system but now you're thinking that you might very likely get used to thinking of these experiences of normal. Maybe you really ought to revise your moral standings to be more in line with the rest of this crazy city – and more in line with what your heart desires.

The feeling of having over-filled your stomach slowly starts to subside while you indulge in reliving the memories. In front of your inner eye, women in leather ties and make-up compete for your attention with young women in Charleston dresses while you play games of spin the bottle. The flow of Champaign seems to be unending and lesbian anthems echo through your mind. Maren gets engulfed in an embrace by a pretty girl and Stefan wiggles his pretty eyebrows at you. Someone grabs you by the collar of your tuxedo jacket and presses you against a bathroom sink.

Wait a minute. You're fairly sure that last thing did not actually happen. Or at least you cannot recall any memory that you could have exaggerated into this daydream, like with the spin the bottle. Who is that person grabbing you by the collar? As soon as you try to bring the image back, the face of the person gets shrouded in the mist of non-recollection. It's a female person, you are sure of it, but you cannot make out any of her features. Did she ever even exist, you wonder, or is she purely a figment of your imagination? If she does exist you would like to meet her, something about this mystery person draws you in, intrigues you …

The sound of church bells is so loud it threatens to split your head in two; you're fairly sure that they're actually using you as 's not until you protect your ears by piling your pillows atop yourself that you realise the church bells must have woken you from sleep. You hadn't even noticed that you fell asleep; you must have drifted off while day dreaming. Your daydreams aren't clear in your memory; the only thing that remains is a lingering feeling curiosity and desire.

With a deep inhale you push aside the feeling and get out of bed. Your self-medication with water and Aspirin seems to have done its job just fine, there's only a discreet pain at the base of your head left. The only thing you still feel is hungry and so you set out to the kitchen in search of food. Your prospects for the day now seem a lot brighter than they seemed when you first woke up and you remember that you have the second screening of your play today. Hopefully they have a second tux for you at the theatre because you certainly rendered the one you wore last night ready for laundry.

You haven't completely set foot in the theatre when your friend and abductor Maren has spotted you. With a huge grin on her face, she struts towards you and throws an arm over your shoulder.

"Are you glad you came with me now? Did it prove worthwhile to the advice of your favourite party advisor Maren? Hmm?" You don't have to be able to see her face to know she is wearing the most smug and self-pleased expression right now.

"I'm certain they'll put up a monument for you pretty soon."

"What's with the snark? Didn't have a good time? Hung over? Envious you didn't find this club before I did?"

"I was indeed hung over but I'm good now. And you know I'd never find a club before you, even if I stumbled into it face first. There's no point in being envious, aside from fanning your ego a bit more."

"Excuse me? I'm a perfectly modest and humble young women."

"Of course you are. We all love you for it." Although your tone is still dripping with sarcasm, you're certain Maren won't take any offense. She knows you're grateful and teasing each other has soon grown to be an endearing gesture between you two. You can very well see yourself becoming good friends with Maren over the run time of this play.

The thought of endearing gestures brings back the memory of Maren with the girl at the beginning of the night … You still have no clue what their relationship is and it perks your interest. Hopefully it won't be too personal to ask but Maren does not exactly strike you as the type to keep much to herself.

"Maren, remember when we first stepped into the back room last night … there was this girl who seemed to know you quite well, and you seemed to uh, know her too. Is she your friend? A special friend?"

"Oh, you must mean Betti. And to answer the question that you seemingly don't dare ask, she's not my girlfriend. We've had mischievous times together, and maybe we still do, but I don't have a steady and neither does she."

"Uh oh, aha." You manage to say but you're quite at a loss for words. Not only have you confirmed that Maren sleeps with other women, you have also learned that she sleeps with them outside of steady relationships. Due to your upbringing, you absolutely cannot imagine sleeping with several people that are not your steadies. Maren really does perfectly fit the expectations you had for the young, wild Berliners.

"So, who is the girl that you asked me about? Did she court you? Did she succeed? Did you go home with her?"

Maren's questions hit you like a punch to the stomach. The girl you asked Maren about. The girl that you met in the bathroom. The girl with the heavy make-up and the skirt and the exotic appearance and the incredible eyes that seemed to look right through you. The girl that brushed her hand by your hip. The girl that made your head swim. The girl that you imagined this morning.

Realisation hits you. It must be very visible on your face because Maren chuckles and flashes you her devil smirk.

"Ouuu, hit a nerve there, didn't I? Come on, tell me. What dirty things did you get down to?"

"She .. I .. We talked. Really briefly. In the bathroom." You're sweating bullets and seem to have lost your ability to speak German (although you are sure that just about every language you know has escaped your mind right now). Why are you feeling like you've been exposed as the perpetuator of a crime when you didn't even do anything?

"The bathroom? That urgent? Wow, girl. Here I was, not even knowing you were inclined towards women and then you go and have sex on the toilet with one! I always had you pegged for the more shy, romantic type – but they do say that the quiet ones are the ones that hide the dirtiest secrets!"

"What are you saying! I'm not … we didn't do anything. Really. We just exchanged a few words and then I left the bathroom and nothing more." You yourself are surprised how much disappointment tinges your voice when you're just defending yourself against Maren's ridiculous claims.

"Oh, Paige, don't make such a face. So nothing happened but you wished it had? Don't fret, honey, I'm sure you'll meet her again. Berlin nightlife may be pretty expansive, but she's certainly around and about in the clubs very often."

You want to question how Maren can know that about the mysterious woman. You want to object that in order to meet her again you'd need to go out again and you're still the stay-at-home-type. But all your objections get stuck somewhere in your throat because you Maren said that you wished something had happened and you cannot object to that. You cannot object because the more you think about the more you have admit that it's true. If the way you leered at her, the way she made your head swim and rendered you incapable of rational thought was not already proof enough, then you still had day dreamed yourself being persued by her.

An answer to what Maren said still fails to form in your mind and so you're left staring blankly at Maren, with a slightly open mouth and burning cheeks. At this point, you really don't need to say anything anymore, for your face is saying more than enough. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a voice protests that your friend now thinks you as lesbian, but you as a whole don't really seem to have a problem with that. It is clear that Maren does not judge you even if she thinks you a lesbian, and until you have found what your sexual orientation really is, you might as well accept this label.

When Maren hugs you, you snap back out of your stupor.

"Come on, stop sulking. We have a stage to own."

Once the curtain is down, you're greateful that everything going on in your mind has not impacted your ability to perform – the performance went very smooth and you're proud of being such a professional. You carefully place the spare tuxedo that was organised for you on a hanger in your dressing room after you undress. With the first tuxedo still a piece of unpleasantly smelling crumpled fabric, you really need to look out for this one.

This time around, no one has intercepted your way from the stage to the dressing room and you're very relieved about that. While last night has most certainly piqued your interest in Berlin's night life, it has also left you physically drained and you seriously doubt that you're up for another such adventure tonight. After you haven taken off your make-up and changed into a modest long skirt and blouse, you quietly steal your way out of the theatre and catch a cab back home.

You open the door to your house with as little noise as somewhat possible. There's a clink sound of metal meeting metal when you insert the key into the lock; and you've never heard the turning of the unlocking mechanism as loudly as now before. The door creaks when you pull it open and falls back into its frame with a heavy thud even though you have tried to slow its movement. You're not hung over anymore, that is not the reason you avoid producing any sounds – rather, your landlady is.

The elderly lady who rents your flat to you lives in the same house, two stories further down than you, on the ground level. After her husband, a military man and fierce nationalist, fell in the Great War, she inherited the stately city house built in _Wilheminian times_, and it is what kept her alive during the _inflation_ of the early decade that hit Germany especially hard. Now she is a dame of fifty-and-something years who is financially settled but not very involved in higher social circles due to her status as a widow. She spends almost all of her time at home and is scarily well-informed about what her renters do, say or are.

If she noticed you coming home last night, you are sure to never hear the end of it. The way you probably stumbled into the house, dressed in men's clothes, with a head full of champagne must have been … unsightly at best. Partly due to her husband, partly due to staying home for long years with time spent on harbouring prejudice and hatred against the new people of Berlin who swayed from what she perceived as social norm, your landlady has fairly strict and rigid morals. Undoubtedly, she would be opposed to you being out all night, she would be opposed to you walking the streets of Berlin all on your own on your way home, she would be opposed to you drinking so much, she would be opposed to you visiting night clubs – and you don't even want to know what her stance on nightclubs such as the one you visited is. It is probably for the better if she just doesn't know at all about how you spent last night.

You've already made it to the stairs without spotting any elderly ladies in working aprons and almost believe yourself to be safe. With a relieved sigh, you set your right foot on the first step of the stairs and immediately regret it. It gives off a long, loud squeaking sound that makes it seems as if you stepped on a small animal rather than a piece of wood. It takes her less than three seconds to appear.

"Miss Paige, there you are. I have not seen at all from you yesterday! How did your premier go?"

You're certain that you did not tell her that you got to star in a new play, let alone when the premier would be. Where that woman got her information is beyond you, but her sources are good, no doubt.

"Oh, it was just splendid. Everything went really smooth and the audience seemed very pleased. We're sold out for a few nights in advance already."

In an attempt to divert attention from yourself, you talk about your ensemble and your theatre as a whole.

"Well that is just splendid, Miss Paige? Did you celebrate with your ensemble?"

"Uh, I just went out to eat with a few colleagues. A small affair, really. I'm always very tired after a performance."

"Mh mh, that must be why you slept in so late today, yes? I knocked on your door at 9 today and you did not open."

"Yes, yes, that's it. Performing really drains me … in fact, I've just returned from the theatre and I really long to get some rest. I hope you will excuse me."

You hurry up the stairs to your door without waiting for an answer from her. You know you're a bad liar and she already sounded suspicious … encounters in the hallway are bound to be quite awkward in the future. In your flat, no cigar smoke or other smells have lingered to remind you of the way in which you woke up this morning. Mere seconds after you have kicked off your boots, you deflate onto the couch in your living room. Tired is the wrong word to describe what you feel like because you have slept pretty late today and don't desire to go to sleep again anytime soon. In fact, drained is a much better word – you feel like you have poured so much of your energy into last night you just have known left you today.

It takes a while to convince yourself to get up, but you eventually manage to and prepare a simple supper for yourself. You clean the dishes after you finish eating and decide to spend the rest of the evening getting comfortable on the couch with a good book. This is far closer to the night time activities that you usually prefer to indulge in than last night. The soft light of the lamp stood on the side table by your couch crawls over the slightly beige pages of the book you're reading. There are no other light sources in your flat at the moment; you've always preferred muted, sparse lights in contrast to the bright lights your father preferred. He'd always say that you'd ruin your eyes one day by reading 'in the dark'. So far, his words haven't held true so far – your vision is still sharp as ever. With each passing minute, you seem to focus more on the part of the page that was around the actual words, drifting off more and more in your thoughts from your reading towards other things. Your eyes begin to fall shut and you do nothing to stop them.

At first, the image is fuzzy and you cannot quite make it out. It takes a while for the view to come into focus and when it does, you're not really any closer to making any sense of it. Is that you? It certainly looks like you … Your auburn hair is coiffed into soft locks at the side of your head, and you're leisurely balancing a top hat on it. Once again, you're wearing the tuxedo – it seems to have become quite the standard outfit for your dream self. Was this a dream? It probably was; the last thing you remember is dozing off on the couch.

You're dancing to a music that you cannot hear. Who were you dancing with? Was that … a sink?! You must have gone completely bonkers – why on earth were you dreaming of yourself dancing with a sink, swaying to what seemed like a soft slow rhythm, wrapping your arms around the white ceramic in what looked like an almost intimate fashion? The perspective of the dream shifted and you were now right opposite the sink and everything was moving around you. Now you were dancing with the sink in first person perspective.

Dancing with a sink was an experience you could have lived without, you think to yourself as you give in to the music that you can't hear but feel. Once again, your eyes fall on your dancing partner. Something about it lures you in but you cannot quite place your finger on what that is. You watch the lights reflect on the sink's faucet, ever changing as you continue to spin around. They're so pretty … they seem to be looking right through you. Looking right through you … the reflection continues to shine but its surroundings get darker and darker. So dark you could lose yourself in them. You want to lose yourself in them. You're staring into the most interesting and beautiful eyes you have ever seen. And you know exactly who they belong to.

Realisation hits you a second time today when you notice that the sink is no more. Instead, your arms are now wrapped around a slim waist that mimics your dance movements. She trails a finger down up your side and settles her arms on your shoulders, slowly wrapping them around your neck. A shaky breath escapes you and you're not sure whether that breath was from dream you or the real, sleeping you that is lying on her couch. Her eyes are still trained on you, as if she had found the most intriguing thing in your face somehow. You lock eyes with her again and once again, get lost in her dark orbs. They look so welcoming, you're tempted to try and climb inside and look what it is like inside of them.

And so you do. With a light huff, you lift your right leg off the floor and swing it over the border of her pupil and steady yourself with both hands on her eyelid before you let your other leg follow suit. The endless black of her eyes had made it look as if you were climbing into vast emptiness but it was, in fact, quite the opposite. It's full in there, full of … something. You don't know what the something is, but you like it. It's warm, and fuzzy, and comforting. The something makes you want to settle in there, wrap you up in the something, and just stay there in her eyes and be safe from the world. You're not sure whether you want to do that, though. If you stay in her eyes, you will not be able to look into them. A sudden rush of panic washes over you because you don't think you can live without looking into her eyes anymore and suddenly you fall. You fall out of her eyes because the something let you go.

When you wake up, you find yourself on the floor next to your couch, the book you had read before falling asleep lying opened on your face. You close it and place it back on the side table after you have lifted yourself off the ground with a sleepy huff. Your mother always used to tell you that it was unhealthy to sleep in any place other than your own bed. Maybe she was right after all. You peer out of the window. It is completely black outside and probably in the middle of the night. You assume that you still have a couple of hours left before it will be time to get up, so you wash yourself a little in your small bathroom before changing into a night gown and settling into your actual bed.

To comfort yourself, you hug one of your pillows close to your chest. The dream you just had is still very fresh on your mind, although the details of dreams you have usually begin to fade as soon as you wake up. What have you gotten yourself into … The image of this girl keeps following you, you keep imagining her and you keep imagining yourself with her. Maren correctly concluded that if you really searched yourself, you had to admit that you want things to happen between the two of you. Things that go beyond a game of spin the bottle.

You wonder whether it is okay to want that. There had been a certain seductive quality to the way she spoke to you. Did that mean anything, though, or are you just making things up? Maybe she talks like that with everyone and you just like to think that she was trying to sound seductive with you. And you still have so many questions … mostly about things that Maren said. What was a gougnette? And why did Maren say that the girl was 'around and about in the clubs a lot'? Does Maren know something about this girl, something she isn't telling me?

With a groan, you start massaging your temples. All of this is making your head hurt. This is all too much, too much at once. There are so many things going on inside your head that you don't have the time to think about all of them. While you are busy thinking about your mystery girl, you're completely forgetting the fact that Maren thinks you a lesbian. That maybe even you think yourself a lesbian. You didn't even have the time yet to get worried about all this. You shove into the far back of your mind for now. There is nothing you can do about any of it and you want to try and get some sleep before the sun rises. With a defeated yawn, you rearrange yourself under the covers. It doesn't take long until you start to drift off to sleep again. There is only oen thought left in your mind. The girl and her eyes. You want to get to know her. Badly so.

Almost a week has passed since you first stepped foot into the Toppkeller and you're no closer to your goal than you were the night of your sink dream. Which might be because you actually didn't do anything to pursue your goal; you just pondered and turned things over in your mind until there were a thousand hopes and a thousand worries In your mind and nothing made sense anymore.

You have however, devised a plan. Even if you still have no idea what a 'gougnette' may be, you do know that Maren said that the girl regularly frequented night clubs. Still you are uncertain what Maren meant to imply with that – for you are sure that she did mean to imply something – but it is the only viable information that you have to go on right now. You have to utilise it. And visiting a few nightclubs is not exactly against your interests, either. It probably cannot hurt to enjoy yourself in Berlin – who knew whether it will always remain such a wondrous, open-minded, outrageous place as it was now. Best to enjoy it while you still have the chance.

There were a few of your colleagues that you asked to go out with you again – Maren is not one of them. Although you don't exactly know why, you are afraid that Maren will connect the dots once she hears that you want to go out again. Not that you have many more secrets to keep from Maren, you are just uncomfortable with the thought of being so very exposed to Maren. She is the first and so far only person who thinks of as homosexual, which is something that you are not ready to disclose publically any time soon – even if this week has fed your suspicions that this opinion of Maren might actually be true. Never In your life have you acted about a man the same way you act about the girl from the bathroom now; never had a man intrigued you so; never has a man made your head swim with a just a few hushed words spoken in a public bathroom.

One of the colleagues that agreed to go out with you walks up to you after you finish that evening's show. She is about the same age as Maren, a bit younger than you, but not nearly as petite as Maren is. Her shoulders are broad for a woman, her muscles are well-defined, her face is wide with a striking jaw line. She wears her dark hair in a perfectly trimmed bob, her eyebrows are intensified with eyebrow pencil and plucked in a way that the form a short angle which gives her a constantly smirking expression. Everything about her is incredibly expressive, from the way she moves to the way she is eying you suspiciously right now.

You realise that maybe you need to cut down a bit on the inner monologue, especially while staring at other people, because it makes you look kinda crazy. Audibly, you clear your throat and out on an adventurous facial expression to signalise you're perfectly ready to dive into nightlife, and that you will not freeze from fear every few minutes this time. At least you hope you won't. You're usually not this easily impressed, not this easily dumbfounded – keeping your cool and calm exterior normally is very easy for you; you have no idea why you made the impression of a surprised puppy all throughout your last club night.

This time around, you will regain your confidence and actually make a positive impression on … someone. Instead of your tuxedo or your usual plain skirts, you're donning a pretty dress tonight and you actually put on your make-up completely and with intent today. Often enough, you will get bored half-way through applying make-up and just walk out with a bit of mascara on because you have never cared for your appearance much outside of theatrics. Not so tonight, though, because if you do indeed succeed in your mission, you will want to look nothing short of your very best. For … someone.

"Oh, wow, that's such a nice dress. Is it new?" The women with the eyebrows seems genuinely interested. She calls herself Rosa but you're not sure whether that is her real name.

"Uh, no .. I, uh, had it for a while." You're fidgeting and you know it and Rosa probably knows it, too. "It's been forgotten in my closet for a while and this seemed like a good opportunity to unearth it."

Of course, that is a lie. You spent almost your entire day yesterday frantically searching for something to wear tonight. You even got new eye shadow so it would match the colour of your dress. Picking an outfit for tonight was nothing short of a nightmare because you put entirely too much thought into it but there is no way you're to admitting that.

"Mhh, well you should unearth things from your closet more often. It suits you." Rosa decides to let it drop although you're certain she has seen through your lie. "Anyway, it is time we leave, don't you agree? I believe it would be best if we started from the _Tiergarten _and then made our way east-wards, heading down the Tauentziehenstraße towards Bülowstraße There are plenty of venues down that way and we can see which of these tickles your fancy, yes?"

"That sounds splendid. Let's gather the others and go."

Your group has already floated in and out of a few different venues when you finally decide to settle in one of them. Although you manage to main a calm exterior this time, you are no less impressed. That there would be so many venues in Berlin for women inclined towards Sapphic love! And you even heard that there were _social clubs_ entirely composed of such women that published magazines, organised trips and held grand social events. Even though you've only known about these clubs for less than an hour, you already feel like joining one. They sound like a lot of fun, and you think that the company of _hot sisters_ would greatly help you in figuring out whether you are actually one of them.

The venue you have ended up in is named "_Café Dorian Gray_" but you have yet to find any sort of real connection the great Oscar Wilde, an author whom you greatly admire. Only the first room of the establishment allows some sort of association, for it prides itself as an 'artist café'. At the moment, though, the air of artist café is completely lost in the party that has spread from the back room –where the party was actually meant to be held – and has now claimed the entirety of the Dorian Gray. As you have learned, the happenings at the Dorian Gray greatly depend on the day of the week. While the backroom is used for private parties by gay men on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, the rest of the week the venue is entirely lesbian. On Fridays they hold '_Damen-Elitetage_' – their flag ship party for lady-loving women of all kind. The rest of the weekdays have different themes that constantly change.

Today is a Wednesday and the theme for the night is 'Three Days in Wild West'. You're not sure whether party is actually meant to continue for three days but some of the guests seem to be in enthusiastic enough a mood to actually continue that long. A lot of them don costumes befitting the theme, which leads you to think that the themes are announced in advance and it makes you feel awkward to not wear any costume. The rest of the party does not seem to mind at all, though, and your group is quickly swept up in the rush of drinking, singing, and dancing patrons.

In an attempt to fit the Wild West theme, the band plays a song that sounds like it should be played in a saloon in the Middle West of America and the merry-makers respond by trying to form a line-dance. It is painfully obvious to you (and probably everyone else involved, too, but they don't care) that no one in the room has ever been close to America – you are impressed with the effort both by the band and the dancers, though. Keeping in mind that people constantly tell you to loosen up, you do your best to join the dancing with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. You've had a few beers during the tour that led you here but you feel very far from intoxicated.

Once the line-dance has come to an end, the party dissolves into its previous chaotic state again and you crane your neck to find your colleagues that have come here with you. Somebody hangs an arm over your shoulder from behind and startles you so much you let out a little cream that goes entirely unheard in the noise of the party. Thankfully, it is only Rosa who says she has been looking for you since you got separated by the line-dance. She sounds slightly drunk when she speaks and you notice that she has failed to remove herself from you even after she got your attention. Whether this is because she wants the physical contact with you or because she simply cannot stand upright without your support anymore is a question that you purposefully leave unanswered.

Like most people who have already had quite a bit to drink, Rosa is entirely convinced that you haven't yet had enough to drink and drags you over to the bar somehow. She slurs to the bartender that you need a shot 'fit for a cowboy' and you pray to heavens above that you'll receive something drinkable from that order. You perch yourself up on one of the barstools while you wait for your mystery drink. Rosa unsuccessfully tries to look casual as she leans on a bar stool next to you and musters you from head to toe.

"You'd actually make a much better squaw than cowboy tonight … you know, without your tuxedo. Maybe we can turn you into a squaw. Yeah, let's do that!"

Rosa staggers off into the crowd before you can ask her what exactly she's trying to do or keep her from walking without your support. With a defeated sigh, you hope nothing bad will happen to her and return your attention to the bar, where the barkeeper has placed a glass filled with a few ice cubes and an amber-coloured liquid. Carefully, you lift the glass to your nose to smell the drink and determine whether you will even try it. The smell reminds you of whiskey but it's mixed with something else … maybe something fruity and something spicy? You shrug and decide that it seems okay to drink and down the liquid in one swift motion.

The alcohol lights the roof of your moth on fire and everything tastes intensely like cinnamon for a split second. Then the warmth of the alcohol makes its way down to your stomach and you relax. Although the drink certainly stung you at first, it's no comparison to the brandy you had on Friday – no urge to vomit, no tears in the corners of your eyes; you probably didn't even look embarrassing drinking this thing. You decide that you like whatever has been in that glass and bask in the warm feeling that by now fills everything from your nose to your belly button a moment longer before you get interrupted. Rosa is back from her little adventure and proudly holds the treasure that she has managed to capture.

Her treasure is a big, bright green feather and you really do not want to know however she came about it. She smiles brightly at you and teasingly tickles your nose with the feather. You're not certain whether her behaviour is endearing or childish. With a quick motion Rosa is behind you – much to your surprise, given her intoxication – and somehow ties the feather into your hair. She takes a step away from you to take in the success of her work, and she seems very much pleased with herself.

"Now you look like a squaw! And such a fine squaw you make with your long hair!" You would not exactly call your hair long. When you wear it curled, like you usually do, it just touches your shoulders. It's just that everyone these days seems to wear their hair even shorter.

"The only thing still missing in the picture is a strong cowboy to steal you away!"

"I don't think I want to be stolen…" There is far too much enthusiasm in Rosa's voice when she speaks of you being stolen.

"Oh honey, quit fooling yourself. Everything about you says that very much wish to be stolen. You know what I mean."

At least you have a strong suspicion what Rosa means by 'being stolen' and the way she suggestively raises her pencilled eyebrows confirms your suspicion. The idea of being intimate with a complete stranger does not sit very well with you. It has never been easy for you to give in to intimacy; your mind has been far too full of worries about the act. Giving yourself to someone else like this has always seemed like an enormous step to you, like you opened up all your vulnerabilities at once and nothing to defend yourself with left. Not that anything bad ever actually happened when you did take this step; it is just a lingering caution on your mind that keeps you from hopping into bed with random strangers.

As someone who generally keeps themselves very well in check, you have little to worry about when it comes to temptations – in most cases, the idea of sleeping with someone does not even intrigue you in the slightest. You have never in your life felt so drawn to any of the men you have been with that you actually desired to sleep with them – you only grew so accustomed to their physical presence that you were able to put aside your worries with them. And being so attracted to a stranger that you would even think of sleeping with them? The idea seems almost absurd to you.

Almost. Because you have been attracted to a perfect stranger lately. And while the idea of actually sleeping with them has yet to cross your mind, quite a few things that seemed like they were leading up to that very point have crossed your mind. More than crossed it. Occupied it. Made you buy pretty dresses and go out partying on Wednesday nights with people you vaguely know.

Suddenly, there is too much on your mind all at once and you abruptly turn around to search for the bartender. Once your eyes find him, you order another of whatever it was that you had before. Rosa looks at you in a mix of questioning and worrying – she probably thinks that she offended you somehow. You swallow your drink much like the first one once it arrives and with intend that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, you fix Rosa with a daring look.

"Let's get out on the dance floor, Rosa. It is time for the squaw to get stolen."

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**A/N:** Sorry, but the notes are extra geeky today. I hope you're all interested in history …

[Aspirin] Famous German painkiller. Initially brought onto the market in classical powder form, Aspirin was actually one of the first drugs to ever be pressed into tablets. By the time this story takes place, both forms were available in Germany but the tablets were rapidly pushing away the powder. Paige probably has some old powder bottle left in her medicine cabinet. Bayer, the company that invented and first produced Aspirin, started pressing it into tablets to increase recognition of their brand to help people like Paige, who have problems with dosages.

[Wilheminian times] Era of German history in which Emperor Wilhelm II reigned, 1888 – 1918. Characterised majorly by the intent of the Emperor to establish the German empire as one of the main international super powers. Sees the first (and last, and fairly unsuccessful) attempts by Germany at colonization, as well as an atmosphere very much dominated by militarism.

[inflation] From 1914 to 1923 Germany saw what many consider to be the most drastic loss of currency value in a major first world nation in recorded history. It all started in 1914 with financing the Great War/WWI, then still as an accelerated inflation – between 1914 and 1918, the Mark had lost half its value. Starting in 1919, the new-born Republic of Weimar greatly increased the amount of currency in the nation to deal with huge national debt caused by losing WWI and having to pay off the winners. In 1920, the Mark had 1/10 of its value in 1914. In 1921 and 1922, economies world-wide suffered huge damage and recession, known as the Great Depression. In 1921, the Mark had 1/100 of its 1914 value, 1/1000 in 1922. When Germany was not able to stem the payments to the WWI winners anymore in 1923, French and Belgian troops march into Germany and occupy the Rhineland, the main force behind Germany's economy. Rhinelanders react by passive resistance and have to get government support because their workplaces are occupied – the government produces even more currency to be able to pay the support. This sets in motion a hyperinflation of historic dimensions. In November 1923, 1$ is worth 4.2 trillion Mark – and that even though the US-Dollar had been hit by inflation as well. It should take until 1928 until reached real wage the level of 1913 again.

[Tiergarten] Famous train station in Berlin, colloquially called Bahnhof Zoo. Made famous much later by the book and subsequent movie 'Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo'. Much in contrast to this depiction that dates from around 1978, the actual zoo that is close the train station are state-of the-art and considered to be sign of luxury and modernism by the time this story takes place. The train station named after the zoo is just a peaceful train station bringing in people from the suburbs. In the side alleys of the streets mentioned, a great number of bars, cafés and nightclubs was located; lesbian and otherwise.

[social clubs] There were a handful of lesbian social clubs at the time of this story. They were quite different in what types of women they were compiled of, what their activities were and what political agendas they carried. Maybe I'll post more about them on tumblr one day, but I think my next tie-in will be a short story.

[hot sisters] General term for lesbians in Weimar Berlin. Although it sounds like a title for an incest-themed porn movie, it was considered a neutral term and it carried no implications about the type of lesbian referred to by this term.

[Café Dorian Gray] Another real-life location. Advertised as 'the intimate nexus of the ladies-world', this establishment was mostly frequented by lesbian couples, especially pairs of the previously described Garconnes. The parties on the various weekdays are also all historically accurate, from the 'Damen-Elitetage' (meaning elite lady-days) to the theme nights. Other themes include 'Wild Night', 'Bavarian Alpine Feast' and 'Rhineland Wine-Growers Holiday'. There's also special occasions, like 'Sado-Masochist Night' on which male transvestites are allowed. Other than that and the gay private parties, there are no man allowed and a doorman makes sure that the guests actually identify to some degree as lesbian or gay.

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Whoever can guess what the drink that Paige gets from the bartender is gets a free cookie! I'm a good baker, so look forward to it ;D


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** This chapter's tie-in is Paige's background story, which can be found here: post/42548877597/paiges-background-story-more-paiges-mother If you don't feel like reading it, do know that Paige has an English dad and a German mum and is thus bilingual. (She also likes to sneakily quote Marlene Dietrich in her background stories. Or maybe that was me … )

I'm once again sorry for taking an eternity to update and this time I don't actually have any sort of good excuse for it. I had this written most of this chapter half a month ago, I'm just terrible at proof-reading and editing. I get distracted from it terribly easy and have to start over times and times again, and still the versions I publish contain a plethora of mistakes. Man, I really wish I could manage to talk into doing that for me :D

Enough self-pity/loathing, though. As a little apology for being tardy, the actual story part of this chapter is longer than the previous chapters! Also, I already have 3,000 words of the next chapter done so I do hope the next update is faster. On to responses to guest reviews, so feel to skip to the story!

**Del:** I'm very glad to have gotten in touch with you! Initially, I beat myself up a lot after your review but then I started talking to writer friend about and that actually helped me a lot in developing where I want to take this story. Once I'm done with this thing, I'll send you a copy of the exchange, you'll see what I mean. Also, rejoice because you most definitely will hear Emily's perspective at some point in this story :)

**cici:** Glad you liked the movie! I'm currently looking to expand my library of literature on historic lady-loving; I'll let you know once I stumble over more gems. You will actually see Paige's life intertwine quite a bit more of with the life of the Dietrich, although I like to take some artistic liberty with the Dietrich's life so you cannot predict the rest of the story from her Wikipedia article ;D

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You really managed to fail in every single aspect that you had in mind when you set out to party on Wednesday night. Even the ones that popped into your head when you were already drinking and devising stupid plans to not have to deal with what was actually on your mind. You like to think that you actually came somewhat close to your last stupid idea. The idea of 'the squaw getting stolen'. Even though in retrospective, 'getting stolen' would have been only an escape from your own head, you did actively pursue this intent when you dived right into the middle of the party.

A woman dressed as a cowboy was dancing very close to you. How exactly you managed to find her in all that chaos escapes you, but you did find her and you liked her. In a way. You liked the way she looked in her cowboy costume, donning men's slacks, a loose fitting cowboy shirt and a cowboy hat. You liked the way she laughed when you started to unbutton her cowboy shirt as you two danced through song after song. You liked the way she kept running her fingers up your legs, continuing a bit further up and further under your dress with every time.

But then you heard a familiar voice. It made its way through the crowd and through your involvement with the cowboy woman into your mind although the voice had not been targeted at you at all. Still, you jolted away from your dancing and flirting partner and took off in the way of the voice with a short apology. Rosa was loudly asking the bar tender for a bucket because she was feeling very much unwell. You yanked her by the arm to the toilet where she spent the next ten minutes getting rid of her stomach contents.

Your chance at getting stolen had been ruined – but you still felt you had done the right thing. For one, Rosa was with a friend who looked out for her now and could take her home. Also, now that the magic of the moment had dissipated you were not so sure anymore of whether you would actually have wanted to get stolen. The face of your partner was starting to blur in your memory, you could barely remember her voice or her smell. Would have sleeping with her even meant anything to you? You highly doubt it, and you want your first time of sleeping with a woman to mean something, to be significant to you. If you had slept with her that night, it would have felt like checking off an item on a list, rather than something special.

Several days have gone by and you still stand by your decision. When you took a cab home with Rosa, it didn't feel like the night had been in vain and it still doesn't feel like it. You did, after all, succeed in one aspect – you learned more of Berlin's nightlife. Maybe you should see the whole thing as practice, so that when you actually set out to accomplish one of your main goals you will not be so unaccustomed with the simple process of going out at night any more. You definitely did embarrass yourself less often than the last time, and this already counts as a success in your book.

Rosa, for her part, is entirely convinced that she ruined your night, no matter how often you tell her that she did not. For the past few days, she has been avoiding you and gave you apologetic looks whenever she did end up in the same room with you. You really hope that you will be able to correct this opinion of hers, for you did find merry-making with her quite enjoyable. Maybe you will actually grow to become friends with her and go out with her, not to pursue a goal but just to have fun. In retrospective, you feel somewhat guilty about going out with Rosa just because you were in search of someone else.

Someone you did not find. Someone who keeps occupying your mind. The urge to look for her is still there, it bubbles up within you whenever you least expect it to. It was almost two weeks ago that you saw her and you still cannot forget about her. You now find yourself in a bit of a dilemma regarding her. Will you ask Maren for assistance or will you not? Given Maren's general resourcefulness and her apparent knowledge about this girl especially, seeking out Maren is quite certain to return some results. But it's also certain to set in motion events you are not sure to be prepared for. Maren has clearly seen though you, and if she does lead you to the girl that you have been looking for, she will most likely at least tip the girl off to what your intentions, your desires are. Will you be able to openly admit to another woman that you have been attracted to her for some time? You have never been person actively seeking out a relationship; you have always been to one pursued by men. Wanting someone is an entirely new feeling to you. It's … refreshing.

Then there is also the problem of your reputation. So far, Maren has presented herself as nothing short of a huge gossip. The fact that you're interested in Sapphic night clubs has by now made its rounds through your theatre troupe, but no one seemed to especially mind – they all seem to be interested in Sapphic night clubs. There is a significant difference, though, between being interested in Sapphic night clubs and being interested in having a Sapphic affair. Berlin might be the most tolerant city on the face of the earth but the wheel has yet to be reinvented. Being a homosexual still is not looked upon kindly by large portions of the population – and if you want to further your career, you have to be successful with large portions of the population.

You dislike how for the first time in your life, you have hit a point where what you career demands completely deviates from what your heart longs for. In the past, these two entities have almost always been the same, or at least very easily combinable. In the moment, it wants to look as if you have to choose between your career and your feelings, and that is not a choice easily made. You feel like as soon as you become known to the world as a hot sister, everything will change. People will look onto you differently and people who were your friends before will cease to call themselves that.

Over all, your outlook onto a Sapphic future is overwhelmingly negative. But still – even if you let yourself sink into negative predictions about your future as a lesbian, you still cannot feel but be so very intrigued by it all. The freedom you feel in Sapphic night clubs goes unmatched in your life so far, and so does the desire you feel for the girl from the bathroom. You really should think of a new name to refer to her in absence of knowing her actual name … maybe you should call her gougnette? Even if you still do not have a single clue as to what this word could mean, its sound strikes you as positively exotic and exquisite, which is very befitting of the girl. The woman.

The kettle on your stove starts whistling to let it be known that the water within is boiling. You take it and brew yourself an afternoon tea – some parts of your English upbringing will never leave you, you presume. You lose yourself while staring into your tea until you feel that it's no longer the tea who is staring back at you but rather a pair of dark eyes that have grown almost familiar to you although you have only seen them once. It takes you a while to release yourself from the spell you are under and when you do, your tea is almost undrinkable from brewing too long.

Not much later, you are in your dressing room, already dressed up for tonight's show and eye yourself in the large mirror that almost completely occupies one of the room's walls. Maren once said you looked dapper in your tuxedo – is that true? From all angles you eye yourself without coming to a conclusive answer. Why do you even care? Are you still playing with the possibility of wearing your tuxedo on a night out, with intend of making a positive impression on other women? Men's wear most certainly seemed to be popular among the women in Sapphic night clubs…

You have to admit to yourself that you don't really care what the women in Sapphic night clubs think or don't think of your appearance. You care what one woman in one Sapphic night club thinks of your appearance. With a groan, you bury your face in your hands and immediately regret it because you'll have to do your make-up anew. Why, just why is she always on your mind?

Now you are glad that you escaped the oppressive emptiness of your apartment early today, so you have plenty of time to redo your make-up. You have always been the type to solve personal problems by delving further into your work but at the moment, this tactic wants to seem ineffective as your work seems to have a tendency to drag you further in your current personal problems. The engagement with this play will last for a few months still and you genuinely enjoy acting this play. Your colleagues are nice, the pay is well, reviews for your performance are raving and over all, it should prove beneficial to your career. You remember that as a small child, you were perfectly convinced you would one day be a star actress, the star of all stages in Europe. Maybe you are not this famous yet, but you are far closer to your childhood dream than you ever thought you would be.

Your eyes widen comically as you feel a presence behind you and shortly afterwards, someone takes the mascara out of your hand. The object is wiggled in front of your eyes for a little before the perpetuator of the mascara theft steps into sight. You roll your eyes at yourself because you really should have been able to guess who this person would be. The small blonde flashes you a bright smile that could probably light the room should the electric lamp fail you. Maren's air of smug self-satisfaction does not find any equal among the theatre group, and you know from experience that actors as a whole are not a humble lot. She definitely outdoes the rest, though, perpetually flashing grins and wiggling eyebrows at everyone to signalise that she has them all figured out and that she knows what's best for everyone.

Despite your lack of reaction to her Mascara antics, Maren still gives you this treatment – and the worst part about it is that she is right about having you figured out, and quite probably about knowing what's best for you, too. At the very least, she knows that better than you do because you are clueless and without direction in your search for gougnette.

"If it isn't the resident baby lesbian!" Maren's voice drips like sweet honey and leaves you feeling like you need to wash your hands from all the stickiness.

"Maren! What are you saying!" you hiss, "You don't know who might be listening. I'd really appreciate if you didn't refer to me by this name."

"Oh, don't worry so much all time – your secret is safe with me. Until you are ready to share it with the world, that is."

"You say that as if what you are insinuating was a definite truth when that is not the case."

"But there is truth to it. You and I both know that."

"Did you solely come to make me uneasy, Maren? Because you certainly did accomplish that task."

"No, I'm here to help a girl out."

"Are you again convinced that you know what is best for me?"

"That I am. Because I do know. I knew last time and this time, I know just as much."

"I'm really not sure whether you helped me out the night after the premier. My life seems to have taken a turn for the complicated after it."

"Word has reached me about your Wednesday. Rosa says you were undressing a _Bubi_ on the dance floor? How unexpectedly bold of you. I don't think that you should aim for any less than you originally set out for, darling. I know what you are aiming for and I also know how to get to it."

Turmoil arises within you. You want to be offended that Rosa told Maren (and possibly everyone else, too) about the cowboy woman. You want to be offended that Maren dares bring up the incident like this. But you are also intrigued, so incredibly intrigued. Maren is talking about gougnette, you are absolutely certain of it. There is resistance in you against accepting Maren's help but there is also desperation in you that knows very well that you can actually use Maren's help. Need Maren's help. Berlin is a gargantuan _department store_ and you're a child lost within it.

Your silence answers the question that Maren did not even ask. More smugness creeps onto her facial features. Your relationship to Maren has never been more complicated – she indeed is helpful to you, she is outgoing, charismatic and she can really bring out the very best in you. On the other hand, she is incredibly manipulative and never knows her boundaries. You can very well imagine the two of you butting heads in the future, always in a fight for dominance and for who is in control of the situation.

For now, though, the control clearly and firmly lies in Maren's hands and you are highly aware of that. With gritted teeth, you give her a court nod to signalise that you accept whatever treatment she has in stock for you.

Maren moves around you in a circle once, calculating and agile like a cat.

"Tomorrow night. 11pm. Bahnhof Zoo. I'd wear slacks if I were you."

"Alright. I'll see you there. You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Oh no, that would not be my style at all."

It most definitely would be her style, so you pray to high heavens that Maren will keep her promise.

This evening, you do not manage to fall asleep at all. Usually, you are completely drained after performances, both physically and mentally, but tonight you cannot seem to find rest. Is Maren's offer sincere? Will she really lead you to gougnette, the girl that haunts your dreams in the most pleasant of ways? And if so, what are you going to do? Will you stumble over your words and make a complete fool of yourself? Will you lose all courage and just run away?

A sudden desire to move sweeps you up and you're walking circles in your apartment before you know it. This night is going to be horrible and you know it, like the night before an especially important task that you should spend on sleeping and gathering your strength but instead spend entirely on painting worst case scenarios in your head. Out of the bedroom you wander into your living room, where you turn on the electrical lamp on the table besides the sofa.

It will need some time to warm up before it actually illuminates the room, for now it throws dark orange shades on the walls of the room that do little to help you see but set an interesting mood. With slow, calculating steps you pace in front of your book shelf that occupies most of the room's wall, facing the sofa. Seeing how you never have any guest here and usually drink your tea in the kitchen, you might as well just call this room a reading room instead of a living room. You draw your fingers over the backs of the neatly lined-up books on the shelf with languished strokes, taking your time to get halted by books with unusual backs.

Among the books, or rather in front of the books, you notice an unusual object. The dim light makes it hard to define by looks alone but you can see how the light that gets caught in the structure is fractured and shattered into interesting shades of an even darker orange, like an intricate glass object manipulates the light. You reach out for the object with your fingers and find that the structure of the material might very well actually be glass. Carefully, you lift the object out of the shelf and into clear view. It's a bottle, filled completely with an amber liquid. There are ornaments on the paper labels and something about this bottle feels at the same time weighty and delicate. That's when you finally remember.

A fan of yours gave you this after a performance as a gift. It's whiskey and, from what little you understand of whiskey, it's a good one. You just put it up in your shelf after you received it because you never really have been one for drinking and especially not for drinking hard alcohol. You also thought that the bottle made a nice decoration for your bookshelf and made you look a tad bit more sophisticated and cultured. Well, you figure, a bottle with a little whiskey missing will make you look even more sophisticated because you actually drink the whiskey instead of just displaying it.

Whiskey is an acquired taste, they say, and you are set on acquiring it. You roam your kitchen cupboards for a nice whiskey glass, only to find out that you do not possess whiskey glasses. Actually, you could have seen this one coming, for you never drink whiskey – so why would you own whiskey glasses? You take a nice tea glass with you and return to the couch in your living room. The cork that plugs the whiskey bottle comes off easily with a little twist and as soon as you remove it from the neck of the bottle, its contents spill their smell all over the room. The first smell that you notice is alcohol. It makes you wrinkle your nose in slight disgust and bring some distance in between you and the bottle.

Then you decide that it's time for you to start acting grown up and sophisticated. You push the thoughts about the alcoholic smell back into the farthest corners of your consciousness and get closer to the bottle neck again. Another wave of smells washes over you – this time you also notice a lot of earthy and woody notes. You're still uncertain on why anyone would want to drink something that smells like wood and earth but you suppose that there is a reason so many fine people drink whiskey. You pour yourself a half glass and lean back into the cushions of your sofa with it. Now that the smell evaporates from a whole glass instead of just from a narrow bottle neck it threatens to overwhelm you.

You will have none of that, though, you tell yourself and take a healthy swig from the glass. Instantly your throat is on fire and the extremely urgent need to gag works its way up from your stomach to your mouth. A few droplets of tears collect in the corners of your eyes and your face contorts into what must be a very funny, if slightly disturbing sight. The liquid has reached your stomach in its entirety and causes a warm, comfortable sensation in the pit of your stomach. On the other hand, the unpleasant feeling in your throat and mouth slowly starts to subside.

Now that you have completely and successfully had some whiskey, you are not sure what to think of the experience. The taste was disgusting, and dominated almost solely by alcohol. You still are a bit tempted to rip your throat from your body so you may never have to feel it ever again. But then, the feeling in your stomach is really nice and the aftertaste of the whiskey is actually quite tolerable, being dominated much more by the earthy and woody notes you smelled earlier. You are also almost entirely certain that to have tasted hints of vanilla. The only really conclusive result of this experience is that you're sure this will get you drunk if only you repeat it often enough.

Your thoughts become very simple and one-dimensional when you drink, you are easily excitable, more outgoing and relaxed, and forget some issues that usually haunt your mind entirely under the influence of alcohol. While you assume that these traits of alcohol might be very negative when you're actually trying to accomplish something, like putting on a good show as the main actress, they will help you tremendously now. You are thinking far too much and are incredibly tense with anticipation of tomorrow night. If you lost your ability to think so much and lost the will to actually care about the anticipation, you might just be able to sleep.

There's still more than half of what you have initially poured into your glass left and you involuntarily shiver when you look at the liquid. It fills you with a certain sense of disgust and with a certain sense of contempt for yourself. You wish you could be more easy-going without drinking, you wish you could just go to sleep without worrying, you wish you could just face the girl you like without having nervous break-downs a day before it happens. At the very moment, you don't like yourself much and this is what gives you the last ounce of courage to down the rest of the glass. Only troubled people sit at night and drink liquor by themselves, and you have just become one of them.

This time, the liquid stings even more and the gag impulse is so strong you actually a gag a little before you regain composure. You hurry off to the kitchen as to quickly drink some water and cleanse the rest of the whiskey from your mouth and hopefully feel less nauseous. The cool liquid gives a bit of ease to your throat and you stand leaning on the kitchen sink for a moment longer. Drinking whiskey certainly does not make you look at all sophisticated; you're really glad no one was around to witness this display of ungracefulness. You push yourself off of the sink to return to your living room when the first effects of the whiskey set in. The world slowly spins around your head and focussing on the objects in the room has certainly been easier before.

It wants to seem that there was more whiskey in that glass than you thought it was; you did not anticipate getting drunk so quickly. When you think about it, this turns out to be a positive surprise because this means you will not have to drink any more whiskey to get the effects you hoped to achieve. With a small smile, you stagger back into your living room and let yourself fall onto the sofa, almost knocking over the whiskey glass still set upon the little table by the sofa. You rearrange the cushions on your sofa quite a few times until you are content with the way you're laying in between them, then you just lie there and marvel at the way your view is still blurring in front of your eyes.

A yawn makes it way out of your mouth before you even realise that you were getting tired. You turn even more in the cushions until you realise that what you're actually missing is a blanket. It takes all the will you can muster to make your legs obey you and get up to fetch the blanket that you have stored in a corner of your living room. You wrap up yourself in the comforter like caterpillar in its quest to become a butterfly and fall back into the sofa cushions. For no reason at all, you begin to smile to yourself, and you keep on smiling until you realise that you're well on your way to falling asleep and currently drooling happily onto the cushions. Once again, you're glad there's no one around to watch you. You clear your throat and rearrange yourself in a way that will hopefully prevent you from drooling again. When you do start drooling again, you're too tired to notice and finally slip away into sleep.

The next morning does not feel like a particularly good start for the day, as you wake up on your sofa in a mangled position, with most of the cushions strewn on the floor around you and your blanket half way down there as well. You groan as you peel yourself off your makeshift bed and groan even louder once you spot the empty glass next to the whiskey bottle. Even though it is empty now, the glass fills you with even more disgust than it did when it was still full, so you hurry over to the kitchen to rinse it and thus destroy all evidence of last night. Admittedly, your plan did work out – you fell asleep quickly, you slept a quiet, dreamless sleep and you did not stir until morning light woke you. It really does not do wonders for self-esteem, however, that you're now drinking all on your own; it feels like taking a step further than drinking with friends.

For now, though, you are willing to face the new day. The day. The day that you're meeting with Maren late at night. The day that she will lead you to gougnette. The day that, hopefully, you will get to know gougnette. The day that maybe even more could happen. Within seconds, you feel giddy all over again. You're buzzing with all the possibilities of what could happen tonight, and only slightly shivering with all the possible ways in which tonight could be a disaster. This is most definitely an improvement over yesterday night, you happily realise and brew the first tea of the day.

Once you have finished breakfast, the day already looks a lot brighter and you decide it is time to start preparing for tonight. Maren said that you should wear men's slacks and although you do not at all know why you should do that you will heed that advice. Thankfully, this is 1927 Berlin and thankfully, you are a somewhat well-known actress, so no one gives you any weird looks when you set foot in a men's clothing store. After a bit of exploration, you walk out of the store with a pair of black pants with a high waist, a white shirt, suspenders and a black bow-tie. At least in the mirror of the clothing store, you thought the outfit looked dapper on you, probably even more so if you put on the make-up with a lot of black around the eyes and curl your hair. The only thing left to hope for you is that this what Maren really meant when she told you to wear slacks.

Back home with your new possessions, you cannot seem to find any peace of mind. You fidget around nervously, walk from the living room to the kitchen and back dozens of ties without ever knowing why and keep glancing at the clock as if to dare it to make time run faster. You take a long shower and spend longer on doing your hair than necessary without managing to make it look any better than usual. Once you deem the time of the day appropriate to take off for the theatre, you have also cleaned your bathroom, did the dishes and rearranged parts of your living room. You intensely hope that this nervousness works similar to your usual stage fright. Before a show, you will be a bundle of uncontrollable nerves, nauseous and impossible to talk to, only to then walk on stage and have all fear disappear in an instant.

Right now, you are still firmly in the before-the -show-stage of nerves and it definitely shows when you try to apply your eye liner with shaking fingers. A glance towards the clock tells you that you at least have a lot of time to retry should you fail the task at hand. You slowly manage to trace the outline of your eye with the elegance of a teenage girl experimenting with make-up for the first time in her life. Thank God the audience is a few meters away from you and will probably not be able to tell. Later this evening, though, you intend to get much closer to certain person than a few meters away … you will definitely have to redo everything for that.

After the performance, you are quick to change into your intended outfit for tonight and are busy with the revision of your make-up and hair when Maren makes her way into your dressing room.

"Getting all dolled up, I see? Perfect." She speaks in a deep, low tone. You wonder whether she is trying to sound attractive or intimidating.

"You told me to wear slacks, so I'm wearing slacks…" There's nothing else you can think of saying because as so very often, it eludes you what exactly she is trying say.

"Yes, so I told you … See you later tonight. You know where." Maren leaves your dressing room just as abruptly as she entered it.

You stare at the door through which she left for a while longer because you are now more unsure of tonight than you have ever been. The way Maren talks about it makes it sound as if you were planning to buy a large amount of illegal drugs tonight, or rob a store, rather than go out to a club or bar. Are you being dragged into something, completely clueless of the plotting going on around you? Berlin's underworld is something that you have absolutely no knowledge of – maybe 'slacks' does not refer to actual men's pants but rather is a code word for something? Something dangerous or illegal, even? An uneasy feeling starts to spread in your stomach but you continue to get ready for the night.

Dark-blue night has cloaked Berlin completely by the time you set foot in front of the train station that lies deserted this time of the night. There is not a person in sight, everything around you is quiet and this does not help the uneasy feeling you have about this meeting. You stand under a lamp post that creates a circle of dim light around and hug the thin coat you have thrown over your clothes tighter to you. There's a sharp wind going and you're already starting to shiver; the tips of your ears are beginning to freeze and you find yourself wishing that you had worn a hat. Not that you own many hats apart from the top hat you wear for the show.

A sudden clicking noise stirs you from your thoughts and musing. You look around you frantically to identify the source of the sound when the source of the sound taps you on the shoulder. The touch surprises you so much you almost jump out of your shoes before letting out a shriek yell that turns into a string of curse words when you realise it was just Maren in her heels walking up to you.

"Did you have to scare me like that?! I almost had a heart attack!"

"Sorry, I didn't know you were this jumpy. Are you on the run from the police or something?"

"No, but if I do indeed strangle you one day, I might just be."

Maren just smirks, not in the least intimidated, and motions for you to come with her. You follow her with clenched teeth, once again aware of the obvious imbalance in power between the two of you. At no point in your life did you like answering to authorities and you like it even less when the authority is based on the fact that the authority figure knows the girl you like. It feels like she owns a part of your life, a puzzle piece that is supposed to be yours. More than ever you are now determined to take this piece from her, to make it yours and yours alone.

There is a tense silence as you two make the familiar way down the _Tauentzienstraße_ towards the area in which many of Berlin's lesbian venues are situated. All along the way, you spot shady looking women on the street, many of them in provocative dresses, sporting leather hats or other remarkable pieces of clothing. Some of them go so far as to whistle and cat-call after you and you don't have to ask Maren what these women are. You do your best to ignore them as you push onward to your actual destination – not that you know what your actual destination is. For now, you are simply following Maren and hope that your actual destination is not a dark side alley where she will stab you to death.

Other than you anticipated, Maren steers you towards a bar or night club of sorts. It looks more like a little night café, tucked away in a row of houses on Kleistraße. A sign over the door informs you that the place is named _Verona-Lounge_. You eagerly step inside and a wave of warmth washes over you that instantly begins to warm your body that had cooled out in the harsh winds of the chilly March night outside. The inside of the Verona-Lounge looks like it's quite the pleasant affair. There are nice couches and a bar made from fine, dark wood and soft jazz tunes playing in the background – but something was off.

Something about this place completely contradicted the chic, cute café vibe that it gave off at first glance. You just were not yet able to place your finger on what that was. Cautiously, you step towards the coat hanger to get rid of your jacket while still eying your surroundings with the curiosity of a child that has only just become experienced enough to learn suspicion. Maren on the other hand seems as unfazed as ever as she elegantly swings her coat onto a hanger and swaggers right into the middle of the café. You follow her timidly and take notice of the people in the establishment for the first time. There seem to be only woman in here, and most of them are dressed in very stylish ways. They seem extremely confident in themselves, which is not something you can claim to be right now.

Most of them seem to regard you a non-entity upon your entrance; they don't look up or interrupt whatever activities they might currently be entertaining. A lot of them apparently are engaged in fairly heavy drinking, you spot several shot glasses, some emptied, some not, next to most of the patrons. At least one of the women currently fights with a persistent hiccup. The few of the patrons who did take notice of you give you lazy once-overs but lose interest in you after you fail to do anything more interesting than stand there with your eyes wide open. Maren tugging lightly on your shirt sleeve is what diverts your attention from them.

"Come on, let's not get caught up with these _Salvation Army Girls_," she says, "As always, the real party takes place in the back room."

Briefly, you wonder whether what she just called those women is an insult but then you obediently follow her to said back room. The first thing that catches your eye is a small lesbian ensemble on an equally small stage, all dressed in stylish men clothing and playing the jazz music that you heard in the other room. The next thing that catches your eye are the women in the room, and do they ever catch your eye. Their make-up is heavy but not overdone, they wear stylish skirts and leather ties, all of them are so pretty you cannot believe it, and they're involved in some of the most energetic dancing action you have ever witnessed.

Rather than just a few merry people swirling each other around to the sound of music, these women seem to be engulfed in something that resembles a fight or a competition more than a dance. With every step, they try to show superiority to their dancing partner and once they have finally won the submission of that dance partner, they are quick to move on to another. It almost reminds you of the games that children play at feasts, a quick competition to see who is better and then off to the next display of strength. The action is so quick it gets confusing to watch and the sexual energy in the room is so tense it threatens to choke you.

Maren's smirk is as ready as it has ever been to grace your obvious bedazzlement with well-meant yet still arrogant understanding. She puts her hand on the small of your back and leads you over to a corner of the room where she seems to have recognised someone. You wreck your brain, trying to figure out whether it is the girl Maren hugged that night at the Toppkeller, but you simply cannot remember her face from that night. Your memory was far too concerned with other faces that night. A handful of women happily group themselves around Maren, the girl she recognised, and you. They give you a friendly greeting and Maren introduces you, much to your surprise without making some embarrassing comment about you. You greet back in the friendliest and smoothest way you can muster and try to not look as awkward as you feel right now.

The group of women loses no time getting the two of you into action, though - they fit you up with a series of increasingly alcoholic drinks and before you know, you find yourself on the dance floor with Maren. Just when you stopped getting confused by the action going on in the room, you are thrown right into it. The band is performing a few popular Jazz pieces from the States right now and you shyly start swaying along with the rhythm. Maren abruptly pulls you closer to herself, not quite sober anymore herself, and start whispering in your ear, albeit quite loudly so to be heard over the sound of music.

"Honey, you mingle with the dancers. This dance is a huge lesbian conquest, you see, but nothing serious. The gougnettes are just flexing their muscles; they try to impress their fellow girls by winning over many women, and fast. You know as well as I do that you are not going to win over any senior lesbians here, so stay comfortably in the submissive role. Play a little hard to get where you feel it is appropriate and feel free to swoon over any lady that makes you swoon. If you just continue this, you will see every gougnette of Berlin within the span of the night. When you do find your girl, though, change your game. She probably doesn't remember you, so talk to her! Let her know you came here for her, otherwise she'll think you're just part of the game and will pass you on."

In your daze, you nod as if you understood what Maren said. Suddenly, there are a whole lot of gougnettes involved when you only meant to search for your gougnette. You also doubt that you feel very comfortable about being 'passed on', no less by someone as important to you as gougnette. Your gougnette. You mean, the girl that you met in a bathroom and instantly took a liking to and have started referring to as gougnette in your head. This is perfectly confusing already, so you have to once again realise that giving up thinking is the best solution for the moment.

Maren and you start twirling each other around in a neat, if somewhat unenthusiastic dance. Both of you know that it will only be a matter of seconds before some of the women Maren called gougnettes will take notice of you and ask you to dance. Indeed, it feels like it has been mere seconds when somebody lightly taps you on the shoulder and extends her hand to you. Maren gives you an encouraging nod and leaves your side to dance with some other woman. You turn around to fully face your new dance partner.

The woman is a fiece redhead, probably quite a few years older than you and a few inches taller. She has the complete look of an authority figure in her leather-heavy outfit; and the dark make-up that contrasts starkly with her alabaster skin. From underneath all the mascara and eye shadow, a pair of green eyes with hazel dots sprinkled into them bore into you and you gulp just a little from all the intensity that she is. Then you take her hand that she has patiently held out to you all the time and let her twirl you around. You giggle like a little school girl at the way the world spins around; and when you are done spinning, you land right in her arms. She seems confident to have won you over and sways around with you for a few dance steps while your bodies are pressed tightly against each other. Whether it is because you cannot think of a way how to do it or because you are genuinely taken with this women you cannot say, but you make no move to stop her from leading you over the dance floor like a little puppet.

Once you begin to let your head swim in the motion and actually feel like trying to dance with her, instead of just being led around, she removes herself from you and smiles confidently at you.

"Thank you very much for the dance, darling," she says and disappears into the crowd instantly.

You stand there, a little dumb-founded, on the dance floor and look after her with an empty stare. Huh, you wonder. Was that what these gougnettes considered a victory in their book? Because the women who just left you standing there certainly had the smile of a winner on her face when she left. What a peculiar game, you begin to muse, just as you are swept up again.

The next woman is rougher with you. She doesn't tap your shoulder or hold out her hand, she immediately begins dancing with, leading you around. Her hair is long, blonde, and straight; it contrasts with her brown eyes. She probably is the oldest woman you have seen in this room so far, as there are fine lines and wrinkles visible on her face, especially around her eyes and the corners of her mouth. In a way, it makes her look … worn. You decide that you don't like the way she handles you and slightly side-step when she tries to grab your hips for another spin. Her hands only make contact with thin air and she looks at you with an expression that might just be honest surprise. Obviously, she did not expect you to elude her; was sure that she already had you won over.

Her demeanour changes in an instant – her aggressive dominance is replaced by a far more cautious approach as she inches her way over to you again, yet still the way she carries herself gives off a clear impression of confidence. She slowly makes her way by your side and past you, brushing her hand against your thigh in a way that seems anything but accidental. Once she is fully behind you, she twirls around and lets a finger dance over your shoulder blades as she circles around you. When she stands face to face with you, she grabs you by the collar, pulls you close and hisses something in your ear that you do not understand. Although you have no clue what the woman just said, you know that you're highly uncomfortable in your current situation and you want to get out of it as soon as possible.

The easiest way to do so, it seems, will be to simply let yourself be won over so that this little game will be over and she will go searching for her next contestant (or victim?). You throw your arms around the woman's shoulders and make a feasible attempt at dancing with her. It takes her less than a second to realise that she has the upper hand again and she celebrates it by spinning you around in front of her and dipping you so deep you are afraid you might hit the floor with the back of your head. You make it through the dip without any bodily harm, though, and are relieved to find that the woman considers her conquest done when you come back up, for she gives you a court nod and marches off.

You are now firmly and absolutely certain that you don't like this game, you do not like it at all. You are half-way off the dance floor when you remember that you have a mission. An important mission. There is no way you can let this chance slip by you now, not after what you've gone through to get it. Not ever again will you land in a position where you are completely dependent on Maren's help – and you shudder to think what she will say when you admit to her that your courage has left you and that you want to go home. No, you will have to put up with this game for a while.

You manage to put up pretty well with it for a while. Woman after woman dances with you – some of them more pleasurable, some of them less so. After a few dances, you have learned how to stand your ground against a gougnette's advances and by now, your willingness to dance with somebody decently reflects how impressed you are with them, not how unable to perform any action you are. While you dance yourself through the ranks of these women, you begin to wonder more about the purpose of this affair as a whole. Why are they even doing this? Who invented the rules to this game and why are all these women in on them? Why do they all wear similar outfits, and why arenthey all gathered here? And, most important of all, why is Maren so certain that you will find the girl you are looking for among them?

As song after song is played, you do not manage to find any answers to your question but you do manage to dance with what seems like every single woman in the room. While the room is fairly packed, there is no way that there still are a lot of girls left that you have no yet danced with and the chance that the girl you are looking for is among them is close to zero. What was left of your motivation and hope leaves you as the current song comes to an end and the woman you had been dancing with leaves your side. Aimlessly, you look around the room, of course not spotting anyone that looks familiar. You are about to give up for the night and drag your hopeless self home when the next song starts to place.

The song is different from the ones that played before, and there is clearly audible whispering all over the room. You sense that something in the air has just shifted and even though you do not know what it is, you decide to stay for one song longer and try to find out. You start dancing with a woman and tune in on the song the ensemble plays. Before, the music was mostly jazz pieces and contemporary pieces but what you are currently dancing to is much different in style – it is a tango. The dancing, not only the dancing of you and your partner, but all the dancing around you looks different suddenly. There is far less aggression in everyone's movements, everyone dances with true passion rather than angry, competitive rage. You try a few quick steps over the dance floor but you are really not an expert at dancing tango, and the whole ordeal looks more adorably clueless than passionate. Your partner seems to enjoy what you are doing, though, and gives you an earnest smile before spinning herself around with your hand held highly over her head. She thanks you for the fun dance and bows deep before she scurries off.

For the umpteenth time that night, you find yourself alone on the dance floor, waiting for another dance partner. Usually, the next gougnette hungry for a gullible woman to win over is at your side within the blink of an eye but this time, you do not have such luck. You look around in a disorientated manner – did you finally dance with every single person in the room and should call off your mission? A few couples are dancing within your immediate range, and you recognise a lot of the dancers. There can only be so many women on one dance floor, you think, and are about to retreat when you spot someone.

A single woman is standing on the dance floor just like you, staring off somewhere into the distance, facing away from you. You immediately see yourself in her (although she does have the distinct look of a gougnette and you do not) – lost on the dance floor, lost in all the action. You hurry over to her because you want to make her feel less lost; you for once want to be the one that initiates a dance, even if it is just for a charitable action. Despite your very recent failure in finding your girl, you want to make this night a bit better for the person standing there; and you're convinced it will make you feel better as well. Thus, everyone will gain from this situation, and those are the best situations.

Just as the first woman you danced with in this room, you cautiously approach the lone woman and gently tap her shoulder to get her attention. She flinches lightly under your touch and you hope that you have not disturbed her at a time when she wanted to be left alone. Within a second, doubt floods your mind and you are about to retreat and blend with the crowd to escape her probably hurtful rebuttal when she turns around. And once the woman has turned around, you absolutely cannot move a single inch from where you are standing. The woman turns around, she looks at you and once again realisation hits you.

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**A/N:**

[Bubi] A masculine lesbian, basically the equivalent to what we nowadays call a butch. Far less specific of a group than most other groups of lesbians mentioned here, a rather broad term for everything that fell into the masculine spectrum but not inside one of the specific ones, like Dodos, Sharpers, etc. Rumoured to be the best car drivers in all of Berlin.

[drinking with friends] I actually assume for our reputation to precede us, but just for clarification purposes: Germany is drinker land. We have one of the highest alcohol consumptions per capita in the entire world and one of the most extensive problems with alcoholism in the developed world; and Germany back then already had it as well. Germans are both heavy social drinkers but also heavy alone drinkers. Paige is adopting quite well to her environment by drinking a lot recently – not to say that I endorse alcoholism, I just mean to say that a mild degree of alcoholism was better tolerated than not drinking at all in Germany back then. Which still holds true to a certain degree today and really highlights how much of an alcohol-centred society we are.

Oh, and the alcoholic drink in the last chapter was Southern Comfort!

[department store] In the early 20th century up until the 30ies, department stores were opening all over Germany. They were often located in luxurious houses in the central cities and regarded a symbol of scientific and economic well-being and progress. They became a bit of a political things in Germany's darkest days, because a lot of them were owned by successful Jewish business men.

[Tauentzienstraße] A rather short street (about 500m long) in Berlin, leading from Breitscheidplatz to Wittenbergplatz. It was constructed in late 19th century after the image of the grand Paris boulevards and named after a famous Prussian military commander, Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien Graf von Wittenberg (I think that's one hella weird name but that's personal opinion – also I keep misspelling it, so bear with me). By day, it held some of Berlin's most prestigious and expensive shops (including Germany's most famous department store, the KaDeWe). By night, as you probably have guessed, it was the business road of many different kinds of prostitutes.

[Verona-Lounge] As always, actual historic location. I'm not entirely sure whether Kleistraße is the correct address since transcription of German addresses in historic sources is often unreliable. Much in line with Paige's initial description of the place, it actually was a nice little night café in the early evening hours – by late night, not so much. Also, I got from my sources that the Verona-Lounge was "host to a Lesbian jazz ensemble led by a male emcee, hot-cheeked tangoes and aggressive displays of lesbian conquest by after-hour gougnettes". The rest of it is completely made up by me for I could not get more info on what exactly those displays entailed. I do hope you liked what I made them out to be ;)

[Salvation Army Girls] A kind of Berlin prostitutes. On the cheaper spectrum of sex workers, they serviced women exclusively (or almost exclusively). They would most often be found at lesbian bars or lounges, sitting at the bar with heavy make-up and heavy alcohol, facing the dance floor with something of a vacant stare.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** No need to apologise at the start of this chapter, woo! I'm actually positively impressed with myself for the quick update. I do have to admit, though, that there's no tie-in for this chapter because I'm currently visiting my parents for my birthday and all my source material is in my own flat. There will be more historic geekery with the next update, though, I promise.

* * *

**Del:** Seriously, you helped me. It's always nice and reassuring to get positive feedback but actual critique is way more helpful. Be proud of yourself! And thank you for the kind words, I'm so glad that the perspective has grown on you :)

* * *

The realisation hits you like a sink thrown directly at your skull, and you almost topple over from the impact. How could you have missed her? How could she have missed you? You must have danced with dozens upon dozens of women tonight and she was among none of them. To think that you were convinced you had danced with every woman in the room seems preposterous now. And to think that you had almost left the dance floor. You are so incredibly glad that you had the will, the courage to walk up to this woman who did not seem like she wanted to ask you to dance with her at all. Never have you considered yourself religious, but in this very moment you believe in divine intervention.

Looking right at you, right through you, right into you is gougnette. And not just any gougnette. The girl that you had started referring to as gougnette because you never had a chance to learn her name; the girl you only met once in a bathroom but that still managed to turn a lot of things in your life around. There is no way in hell you are going to let this chance slip by. You will get to know her. You will learn her name; you will learn everything there is to learn about her. There is more determination circulating through you than there ever has been in your life; and you generally consider yourself to be a determined person. But this, this is different. It smells a lot like a life time opportunity, and one Paige McCullers will not let it slip past her.

Obviously unaffected by all this inner monologueing pep talk that you are giving yourself in this moment, gougnette just looks at you with those incredibly intense eyes of hers. She seems to be frozen in time, just like you are, when you would expect the exact opposite of one the gougnettes; these women that make seduction and displays of confidence their major past time. It wants to seem like time creeps by at a much slower pace than usual while you are still caught in the moment; you staring at gougnette, and she staring right back at you. Naturally, gougnette is the first one to find her voice.

"Hey," she whispers. It is low, it is husky, it is everything you remembered her voice to be and you want to melt right there in this spot. You thankfully can retain yourself from doing so, though, because this would be everything but professional and everything but attractive. You are not even sure whether you ought to be professional or what exactly being professional in a situation like this entails, but you certainly do not want to slip right back into your embarrassing, stuttering self again. So you work hard to maintain a calm exterior and call into memory what Maren told you about this game.

'When you do find your girl, though, change your game. She probably doesn't remember you, so talk to her! Let her know you came here for her, otherwise she'll think you're just part of the game and will pass you on.' is what Maren had said. However, you find it very hard to believe that gougnette would just pass you on to any random stranger at this point, given how intensely she is currently staring at you.

Then you suddenly remember that it was actually you who first approached her, that it was you who tapped her shoulder to get her attention. Your intention at that point was to dance with her – and maybe that actually is a good idea at this point. The two of you are on a dance floor and there is tango playing in the background, and everything points towards the fact that you should dance with your woman. Your woman who is not actually your woman, but someone you met once for a few seconds and have not managed to get out of your head ever since.

"May I ask for this dance?" you say in the most seductive voice you can muster. Since you are not accustomed to being seductive, and much less so actually talented at being seductive, it does not come out half as attractive as you had hoped it to be.

Gougnette does think otherwise, it seems, as she bashfully diverts her eyes to the ground and a smile slowly blooms on her face. She carefully takes your hand in hers, and you are immediately taken with how soft her skin is and how well your hands fit together and how perfect everything is right now. Her other hand snakes itself around your waist and before you know it, you find yourself drawn into a tight embrace that is very befitting of the tango that is still playing in the background. You have not magically learned how to dance tango within the last five minutes but you are more enthusiastic about tango than you ever have been.

The hand that gougnette is not holding walks its way up her torso and then drapes itself around her shoulders. You watch the process as if the hand weren't yours; a stranger's hand that you have taken an interest in watching, maybe, but it certainly feels not like you are the one guiding the action of this hand. Now that your torsos are flush against each other, gougnette once again looks into your eyes, now less bashful and more adventurous. She starts taking quick steps all over the dance floor and you have problems keeping up that must be visible from all across the room. Gougnette seems to care not for your inaptitude at dancing, though, and continues to propel you both over the dance floor; spin you around whenever she feels it appropriate, then falling back into the quick leg work within an instant.

Once again, you feel dizzy from the action – but the quickness of the motion you have been swept up in is probably just a contributing factor to that dizziness. For two weeks, you have been chasing after a person you barely remembered, to the point where you wondered whether that person had actually existed in the first place. And now, without any pretence or warning, this person is all over you – her hand is in yours and she has an arm around your waist and you have an arm around her shoulders and oh my god, it feels like every square inch of your skin that is making contact with her is on fire. The feeling is far too much to handle; it occupies your entire mind, so that your legs and feet get no part of your mind and just helplessly stumble along after gougnette's dancing.

Eventually, even gougnette notices that you are not up to the kind of acrobatic pursuit she is currently demonstrating and noticeably slows her pace. Your breath is starting to calm down and you feel at least a bit less dizzy. Now you are just slowly swaying with her to the end of the song as it is slowly fading away. This dance is so incredibly different from all the dances you have had this night. No one is trying to win anyone over; even though gougnette is a much better dancer than you are, there is no display of dominance, nothing to be won. Just the two of you, dancing, lost in your own bubble already.

The next song is a much slower, less fiery one and you once again remember what Maren said about this game, the rules of which you seem to be breaking already. 'Let her know you came here for her' That probably is a good idea. Although you already do have an inkling that gougnette does, in fact, remember you, this might just be a false hope that you are giving into and it is better to make sure.

"Hey," you lean close to her ear and speak lowly, "I just … I wanted to let you know that you are the reason I am here. I have been searching for you. Now I have found you."

Gougnette pulls away from you to take good look at you. She seems to be torn between different emotions and unsure of how to react. Finally, she leans back in and whispers to you, "You … you want me to be your gougnette?"

You are uncertain what she means by those words, yet 'my gougnette' does sound very good in your head so you decide to go along with whatever she may mean with that expression. With a long look into her eyes, you give her an ensuring nod. For a split second, you notice her expression fall a bit, almost as if you had let her down somehow but she regains composure before you can be sure of the expression you saw.

"You know how this goes, right?" Her voice once again makes your eyes glaze over for a second just from how incredibly pleasing it is to your ears.

However, you do not know how 'this' goes. In fact, you don't even know what 'this' is. Your face must betray your confusion to her, for her eyes visibly soften and she gives you a little, adorable smile. She breaks away from the embrace that you two had settled into quite comfortably and tugs on your sleeve to make you follow her. She leads you off of the dance floor, towards the bar area.

Before you reach wherever she was leading you, a familiar face re-joins you for what seems like the first time in a few hours. You never actually thought you'd be relieved to meet Maren in a night club, no less when you are with gougnette – but in fact, you are more than happy to have run into her. With her typical quick wit, Maren has completely grasped the situation before you have even come to a stop before her and you can be sure that in her head, she is already scheming. She approaches gougnette and exchanges a few quick words with her that you cannot hear over the music. Then Maren and her take a few steps away from and you're about to jump Maren's throat out of fear that she might ruin your chances with gougnette – when they already peel away from each other again.

Maren scurries off to God knows where and gougnette takes a few tentative steps back in your direction. She gently rests her hand on your forearm once she has reached you and fixes you with one of her looks that are soft and intense at the same time. You feel like she wants to tell you so many things at once with these looks but because there is such a myriad of meanings and messages to discern, you get lost and simply stare back and admire how pretty she is. Your head swims in the dark orbs of her eyes and when you hear her talk, it feels like she is stirring you from sleep.

"Hey", it's the second time you've heard her say that word this evening and you think that you'd be pretty content if it was the only thing you were to hear for the rest of your life.

"It's okay, your friend and I sorted things out." What exactly did they do sort out? Was there anything to sort out? You still have no idea what gougnette is about to do with you. To your surprise, you do not feel scared at all. Nervous, yes. But not afraid something bad might happen to you if you blindly follow her, much unlike how you were afraid Maren might slit your throat in a back alley when you followed her. Gougnette's presence has an inexplicably calming effect on you and you simply smile a relaxed smile to signalise you are okay with whatever is to come.

"I know a place we can go … I'm there quite often, and I'm sure we'll find space there at an hour this late. It might even be pretty empty by now." You are going to go somewhere? Where? Why? Did she not like it here? Or did she want to take you out to dinner, something like that? It must be well past one at night, you doubt that gougnette is going to find many open restaurants at this nightly hour.

Despite your puzzlement, you decide to be bolt and hook your arm with hers as you set in motion to leave the club. She looks surprised for a split second but regains her posture in an instant and begins to walk you to the door. You get your coats (she is wearing a most impressive fur coat that you are fairly sure to have seen before) and step outside into the cool night air.

"It's not that far from here," she says "we can walk there. It will be more discreet."

Discreet? Is there any need to be discreet? Even you, who is very acutely aware of the social repercussions of entering into a lesbian relationship, are not worried about just being seen walking along a street with another woman. This whole affair strikes you as queer, very very queer. Is gougnette ashamed to be seen with you? She certainly has not seemed ashamed at all while you were in the night club; she even went so far as to initiate physical contact with you in front of others. Why the sudden change now that you've made your way out onto the street? Especially in a quarter of the city like this, that is filled to the brim with lesbian venues and must certainly see its fair share of lesbian interaction in its streets.

"Uhm, are you coming along?" The most interesting battle between confidence and shyness takes place on gougnette's face as she looks over her shoulder to speak to you because you spaced out and did not follow her steps. She is trying to put on the same cool exterior that all the gougnettes at the night club had worn, but there is something that interferes with this effort of hers. Her eyes are a tad bit too wet, a tad bit too wide-open and doe-like, her eyebrows furrowed a bit too much like worry rather than cool-cat annoyance – while you were most certainly deeply impressed and also a bit scared by how confident in her dominance the other gougnettes were, you do not fully buy the whole confidence act from her. She still is more confident than you are, of course – in the last two weeks, that seems like a very easy feat – but something about this situation is touching her. In what way it does touch her, though, you cannot say.

You nod firmly and walk with gougnette from the club into the direction that you came from previously this night. A silence settles in between you and gougnette but it's not quite a comfortable one. It is also not an uncomfortable one – just a silence that is filled with a lot of uncertainty and tension. Both your and gougnette's arms swing loosely by your sides as you walk a swift but not hurried pace through Berlin's dark streets. After you unhooked your arm from gougnette's to grab your coat, you have not managed to again muster the courage to take her arm or her hand; even if her hand so close to yours is most tempting. You do not wish to overstep her personal boundaries and your feelings are still in turmoil over accepting the fact that you want her.

The two of leave the maze of small streets that you've been walking through and set foot onto Tauentzienstraße again, where a collection of shady women similar to the ones you encountered earlier the night is already waiting for you. You believe to notice that there's fewer of them than before but you cannot be sure because you once again try your best not to look in their direction as they try to get your attention. You ignore the cat-calls and whistles until you hear one of the woman address you.

"Hey girl! Long time, no see," the woman hollers in your general direction. Confused, you look at her and try to place her face but absolutely cannot remember it. Why is she talking to you?

"Hey Sarah – sorry, I'm kind of busy. No time to chat," gougnette answers her. So the woman wasn't addressing you, she was addressing gougnette. But why? And why does gougnette answer? Why does she know the name of this prostitute? The thought is making you uncomfortable on more levels than you can name. You look over at gougnette with a questioning expression but she is avoiding your eyes and quickens her pace to escape the situation. It seems you are not the only one who is uncomfortable.

It is not until you turn into _Kurfürstendamm_ that gougnette slows her pace a bit to let you catch up. She seems more comfortable again now and that makes you inexplicably happy. You know that it probably wasn't your presence that made her comfortable, but still you like to think that you're watching out for her. A dopey smile spreads on your face and you forget to watch where you are walking. Centimetres before you are about to collide with gougnette, she raises her hands and gently stops you by grabbing your upper arms. You instantly wake up from your stupor and realise that you were just running into her. Vainly, you try to deflect with an awkward cough but you are already turning crimson red from head to toe.

Gougnette just chuckles lightly, producing what has to be the most heavenly sound on earth. "Take it easy, champ," she teases, "We're almost there."

In lack of a good response, you just smile and nod. That's usually a good way to react when you have no idea how to react, plus the smile is actually genuine this time thanks to gougnette's hands still resting on your arms and her face hovering just a few inches away from yours. For a few moments, the two of just keep standing there, looking at each other. Then gougnette slowly lets her hands slide down your arms and releases you from her hold, taking the lead once again to some unknown destination that apparently is not far from here anymore.

And in fact, it is only a few minutes later that gougnette stops in front of the entrance to a hotel. You can see the big lounge through the glass in the doors; it is still brightly lit, in contrast to the rest of the hotel that lies in perfect dark. Gougnette looks at you one last time with her mixture of shy and confident before she seems to have reached some sort of decision and pushes open the doors to the hotel. As you step into the lobby, you fully realise how big and elaborate it is. It gives off an air of grandeur but doesn't seem overladen or oppressive. You figure this lobby must belong to an expensive hotel – which does not answer the question of why you are here.

The night concierge gives gougnette a nod to greet her but completely ignores you; it seems that the two know each other. Does gougnette come here more often? Maybe she even lives here? She must be very wealthy in that case, because living in a hotel like this cannot be cheap. The prospect of being guest to a fancy hotel room in a fancy hotel that belongs to a fancy woman (that you happen to be attracted to) has you fidgeting as you follow gougnette into the hotel's main hallway. Gougnette ignores the ornate elevator that seems to be the central piece of the hallway and instead opts for a little door. It leads to a small staircase that brings you up to the first floor in what you presume to be side wing of the actual hotel. Gougnette stops in front of a door on that looks just like the others lining this narrow hallway.

"Here we are," she says and again insecurity plays over her features. You're starting to wonder whether there is something gougnette is afraid of. Did Maren pull you into some illegal stunt after all? Will gougnette hand you a kilogram of cocaine in that room and then leave into the black of Berlin's night?

"Is this where you live?" you ask, and you're probably sounding very innocent. At least gougnette offers you a very mild smile in return; so mild that you suspect it might be a sign of pity.

"No," she softly shakes her pretty head, "I don't live here. This is where I work."

She works here? Who works in a hotel room on Kurfürstendamm? You want to ask her more about it, but you suspect that she will think you even more naïve if you do. The uneasy feeling that has started to form a knot in your gut does not subside on account of this information about her work place; rather, it worsens. You gulp audibly and there is no way gougnette has not heard it. She doesn't offer a reaction, though; she simply proceeds to unlock the door.

Your knees are wobbly when you step into the door frame for a multitude of reasons. First, you are still afraid of what might await you inside, cocaine trades or God knows what. Secondly, you are just extremely uncertain of how well you will handle whatever you happen upon inside the room. Most importantly, though, your knees are wobbly because you have finally found gougnette. You have found gougnette and she keeps making your head swim in the best way imaginable and now you are headed to somewhere private. Maybe the thing gougnette has in mind is not so much illicit as it simply sinful. The thought makes your knees go even wobblier and your heart rate pick up. Your mind is flooded with inappropriate imagery in an instant but you try to push it away and instead focus on the room you're about to enter.

Gougnette has foregone switching on the actual overhead lamp of the room and instead is lighting a series of candles; a pair of little lamps is already lit on the sides of the big bed that forms the centre of the room. From what you can make out in the dim light, the room looks quite like a typical hotel room. Central bed, a door leading to a little adjacent bathroom, bedside cabinets, a small table with two chairs, nothing out of the ordinary. Except for the candles that gougnette is lighting. Either she plans to perform some _satanic ritual_ or she is trying to set the mood. Even you, with your little sexual expertise and experience, know that candles and a hotel room just scream 'sexual encounter'.

Once gougnette has lit all the candles in the room, it is completely filled with their dancing lights and you have to admit that is looks very pretty. You close the door behind you when you finally decide to step out of the door frame that you have been holding on to for support for quite a while now. The instant the door behind you falls into its lock with a distinct click, every ounce of awkwardness suddenly seems to fall from gougnette. She peels her heavy fur coat off of her shoulders in a single smooth motion that betrays the quite likely enormous weight of the garment and makes your breath catch in your throat. There are no inappropriate images on your mind anymore, for something far better is taking place right before your eyes.

Your mouth has already gone completely dry, although you actually rather feel like drooling, and you can hear yourself gulping awkwardly. Gougnette drops the fur coat on a chair with more elegance than should be allowed for such a simple act. She walks towards you at a painfully slow pace, swaying her hips with every step she takes. You want to react to her advance but you cannot think of a way to react and you cannot gather enough to courage to do anything at all, so you just stand there, frozen in time as you watch her come to halt mere inches away from you. Her fingers curl around the lapel of your coat before you have even realised she has lifted her hands.

By now, your heart hammers so hard and fast in your chest that you're convinced gougnette must feel the vibrations of your thorax caused by your heartbeat, simply because she stands near to you. Her eyes are trimmed on the lapel of your coat; you only see her dark eyelashes as you stare at her with wide eyes. Gougnette delicately runs her fingers down to where a belt keeps your coat tied together and releases it with playful ease. Although you are still dressed in more layers of clothing than you usually are, you already feel undressed. But you don't mind it. You don't mind feeling undressed in front of gougnette at all, especially since it's gougnette who is doing the undressing.

The coat falls to your feet with a low thud when gougnette pushes it off of your shoulders, very deliberately running her hands all over your upper arms after the garment has already fallen. If she made your head swim before, she now has launched it into outer space – where your head and mind spin around without any idea of gravity, without any relation to what is going on in the world anymore. But while your mind is uncontrolled motion, your body is as stiff as a wooden board and refuses to obey any command giving to it by your head. Gougnette blows a kiss under your left ear and a shudder runs all over your body. You exhale a shaky breath and instinctively close your eyes. She correctly interprets this as you liking what she does.

Her arms look behind your neck and she trails a series of little kisses down to your collar bone. You have trouble catching up with all that is happening. How did you ever land yourself here? At no point in time did you ever actually tell gougnette that you were interested in her. Why does she know? Did somebody tell her? Maren maybe? And even if gougnette knows you are interested in her, how did you move so fast? You are used to taking things slower. Quite a lot slower. You do not even know her name yet and you have already landed yourself in a hotel room full of candles with her. And also, you cannot shake the thought that she seems suspiciously prepared for all of this.

Gougnette lightly sucks at your pulse point and your mind is washed clear of any thoughts and any doubts. There is nothing else that you can think of while your mind is so completely occupied by her. She grabs your shoulders and starts pushing you towards the bed. Everything in you is on alert instantly. Is she really going to sleep with you? Even in your wildest dreams, this had seemed like a distant chance. Tingles run all over your body and your body temperature rapidly cycles through sweating bullets and being ice cold. You must seem extremely unattractive right now, and you have no idea what exactly is fuelling gougnette's advances right now. You have said nothing of any substance in the past thirty minutes, barely moved a finger since you entered this room and generally made the perfect impression of a huge, awkward dork.

Ever undeterred, gougnette begins to loosen your bowtie expertly. She quite likely is better at loosening it than you were at tying it. Her fingers move effectively, and elegantly, and seductively. Once the knot is completely untangled, she holds onto both ends of the bow tie cloth and uses it to pull you towards her. A wave of excitement washes all over you and your lower belly feels like it is being filled with liquid fire. You can feel the blood pooling down there and know exactly what that means. That for the first time in your life, you actually, really, honestly want to sleep with someone.

That someone has by now pushed you into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, and is currently positioning her knees besides your thighs, so as to end up hovering over your lap. Hopefully, she will not feel how strongly your lower regions are pulsating right now, for you would find that to be rather embarrassing. Your bow tie gets discarded to the side as gougnette pops open the first button of your shirt. Somehow, this snaps you out of the trance that you have been caught in. You are about to sleep with gougnette, what are you doing here behaving like a life-less doll?

Gougnette lets out a small gasp as your hands suddenly snap to life. You untie the leather tie she is wearing around her neck and use it to pull her further towards you, just like she did earlier with your bow tie. It still hangs loosely around gougnette's neck when you've already opened the first two buttons of her shirt and are kissing just between her collar bones. Your actions seem to surprise gougnette and when you pull back from her, she looks at you in disbelief. You cannot stand to see her beautiful face all worried and wrinkled up like this, so you carefully lift a hand to caress her cheek. She briefly leans into your touch before breaking away from you.

"It's okay," she whispers but her voice sounds like nothing is okay. It sounds troubled. Is gougnette having second thoughts about this encounter?

If gougnette is not comfortable with this, you don't have to continue. You'd be just as happy just talking a bit with her. Your interest in gougnette definitely extends beyond physical attraction. Something about her, about the way she carries herself, about the way she looks at you makes you want to find out everything there is to know about her. Just when you are about to tell her that you would be very much okay with stopping this if it made gougnette uneasy, gougnette once again wipes the state of your mind clean. She has made quick work on the remaining buttons of her shirt and throws the shirt away from the bed as if it was on fire. Now gougnette is kneeling right in front of you, hovering over your lap and her breasts are directly facing your eyes. Their supple curves are covered by black, lacy underwear that you feel the immediate urge to take off with your teeth.

Mesmerized by the view, your lungs have forgotten how to breathe and you are simply sat there, staring at gougnette's breasts. The situation is all too much for you to grasp at the moment. Mere hours ago, gougnette was such an idolised fantasy in your head that you were starting to doubt whether she had ever existed. Now she has exposed herself to you and you still don't even know how to react. When you have finally remembered how to breathe and use your limbs again, you ran your hands up her sides, from her hips up until you touch the side of her bra. You ran your fingers tentatively over the fabric but instead of making your way to her breasts, you run your fingers down her back where you let them rest on the small of her back. You're nervous about being too forward – although that seems like a silly thought in light of who it was that took off gougnette's shirt.

For the briefest of moments, gougnette seems to actually allow herself to fully bask in the feeling of your hands against her body, she allows herself a moment of pleasure – before she snaps back to her confident self again. You find this overly confident self of hers a tad weird, to be quite honest. It feels like an act, like something she puts up to shield her real self from the outside world. When you two met in the bathroom back then, or when you first asked her to dance with you; those are moments when you believe to have witnessed gougnette the way she actually is. Now she is again clad in this psychological armour of hers; with her breath steadied and eyes not so heavy-lidded like they were just a few blinks of an eye ago.

She avoids your eyes as she makes her way down to your waistline, and teasingly pops open the first button of your pants. One of her hands slips under the dark fabric and explores southwards but without even thinking for a second, you grip her wrist and stop her. A tidal wave of panic has just hit you and you realise that this is all too fast for you. You don't want to sleep with her now. And it's not because you're not attracted to her; in fact you are immensely attracted to her. But you want to hold her hand first, you want to kiss her on the lips, you want to get to know her, you want to spend time with her. This is too soon. It's not what you want it to be like. You simply do not find it in yourself to continue.

"Please," you urge her to look into your eyes with your voice, "you really don't have to that right now. It can wait."

"But," gougnette looks at you with the most quizzical expression on her face, "you realise that you can get whatever you paid for, and it's only valid for one night and-"

"What?" You cut her off, and you know it's rude but you are beyond confused. "What I paid for? That's nonsense, I didn't give you any money!"

"You did," gougnette makes an audible effort to keep her voice steady, "or rather your friend did for you. Quite the large sum, too. I told you, we sorted everything out."

"Why, though? Why would she pay you, I thought we were just going to have a dance together and then you led me away and I thought you-." You trail off because you never really had an idea of what this whole affair was about.

"Do you-" Her voice cracks more with every letter she forces out of herself. "Do you really don't know? Did you not realise?"

"Realise what?" You are so agitated; your voice comes out as more of a cry than a question.

"You must be either the most naïve or the most innocent person I have ever met", A funny twinge of compassion, maybe even adoration plays into gougnette's tone but she is quick to force it away again. "I'm a gougnette, dear. I am a prostitute. I have sex with people for money."

"Th-that's what it meant?"

Your mind is spinning furiously to process this new information. You were wrong, so wrong from the beginning. When you met in the bathroom, she was offering her services and when you told her to be your gougnette, you hired her services. There are no words to describe how stupid you feel. In your chest, it feels like your heart actually deflates. When it was filled up to the brim with so many exciting emotions before now, it is now rapidly approaching the point where it is filled with nothing but solid lead. The imagined weigh lays so heavy on your chest you actually let your shoulders slump forward and must appear to be the poster image of crestfallen when you search her eyes again.

"So, this was all work for and you never were interested in me?"

The question leaves you before you consider the fact that you do probably not want to hear the answer to that. If gougnette sounded broken before, she looks absolutely shattered now. She has moved away from your lap onto the edge of the bed, where she still sits only clad in her bra and looks like the smallest, most fragile thing. Her head hangs low and she stares to the ground with glassy eyes. Her fingers are tied up in knots, fidgeting around nervously. You are almost certain that she is about to cry.

"I'm sorry, it was not my intention to insult you based on your profession. It's just that …" you stop for a brief moment to think. What is it? "I, I just thought that there was more between us. But I see now that this not the case and I accept that and I apologise for leading things into the wrong direction."

There must be a special portion of your brain that makes up fairly well-worded apologies, because for most of the time that you have been speaking, you felt like listening to yourself while most of your brain was still in full panic mode. Actually, you are quite proud of yourself. You slowly slide your hand over her hand that is resting on her knee and gently stroke its back. Gougnette quickly draws away her and looks you directly in the eyes.

"I can't do this," her voice is failing her, it comes out rushed and unsteady, "This… this is too much for me. I'm sorry, but I just can't. You'll get your money back, I promise. But I need to go now."

Gougnette stands up, gathers her discarded clothing from the room and clutches it to her chest. You keep sitting on the bed and do not try to physically stop her from leaving; you know it wouldn't be right. Just as she is about to leave through the door, though, you call out to her one last time.

"I don't need any money back, it's okay. Just do me one favour, please."

Her nod is timid but still noticeable.

"Please, can you tell me your name?"

Her eyes drop down the floor and then move up to meet your gaze again multiple times in quick succession. Eventually she seems to have decided to answer the question and clears her throat so her voice will sound a bit more like it usually does.

"Emily."

* * *

**A/N: **

[Kurfürstendamm] Quite probably the most famous street in Berlin, and maybe one of the most famous streets in continental Europe. Nicknamed Ku'damm by most Germans and considered one of the main symbols of the roaring twenties in Germany. A boulevard that rapidly developed into one of the brimming centres of culture after WWI. It was lined with cafés where artists met, varietés, theatres, cinemas, etc and frequented by pretty much everyone of some fame back then. I am not entirely sure whether there were any fancy hotels on Kurfürstendamm at the time being, but researching fancy hotel locations turned out to be more tiresome than I expected it to be, so I just went for something very recognizable. Since I'm sure that the street will show up again in some form or other, just keep in mind that it was one of the epicentres of European culture back then.

[satanic ritual] Paige's mind may be in paranoia mode at that point – but her guess was not that far off with the satanic ritual. In fact, Berlin experienced a prospering age of Satanism other weird cults during the times of the Weimar republic. Even Aleister Crowley himself paid good ol' Berlin during the early thirties: Christopher Isherwood claims to have taken Aleister with him to his favourite gay bar, where he shrieked and almost scratched a dude's eyes out before Christopher could drag him out of the venue. (And I know, I know, Aleister is not actually associated with Satanism. He was still bonkers, though, and so was a lot of Berlin then.)


	5. Chapter 5

**[A/N]: **Once again, I find myself testing your patience. I'm not sure whether I've mentioned before but when I'm not researching sexy things about the 1920ies I actually am a medical student. Until Easter, I've been doing an internship in plastic surgery (actual plastic surgery, not beauty surgery) and it's been at the same time one of the most interesting and one of the most exhausting things I've ever done. During the internship, I barely found the time to fill my fridge with groceries, much less get a word written down. My semester has started up again and while it is by no means relaxed, I do expect to find time to write more in the near future.

Also, I want to reassure you that this is most definitely a Paily story! Just like on the show, it will take them some time to find happiness with each other but they most certainly will. I'm the biggest pussy when it comes to fictional characters and I couldn't write a sad ending to a story if my life depended on it. Whatever I might throw at the two of them, know that there is always hope ;)

* * *

_**Berlin, Germany – May 1927**_

Sundays are maybe the most relaxed days of your week. Recently you have had a lot on your hands because you accepted a second job. In addition to your main job, you are now helping out at the _Komödie am Kudamm. _You are filling in one of the more significant, yet not main roles for the matinee shows, which take place on early afternoon. The job is not particularly important or particularly well-paid but it suffices as a way to pass your time these days. You have never acted comedy before – even though your idea of theatre was greatly influenced by the Shakespearian tradition of your native England – and you hope this job will broaden your horizon. Being versatile, being adaptable, being able to reinvent yourself in ever different characters are characteristics that you greatly value in actors and that you want to possess one day.

On account of the fine weather you decide to forego any sort of public transportation and take your time to walk to the theatre. It's May and spring is in fullest bloom all over the place. It's nothing like the early, tentative spring in March when the first signs of life after a long winter dare to poke their heads out from under the layer of snow. It's nothing like the temperamental spring in April that is prone to rapid changes in weather because it feels aligned neither with winter nor with summer. It's spring that is bursting with energy; everything is gearing up for a _hot, long summer_. You breathe in the general atmosphere of liveliness in the air with every breath you take and it heightens your mood by the minute. When you arrive at the Kömodie, there is a spring in your step and you are tempted to hug everyone in sight for merely existing.

Your good mood must translate into your performance this afternoon, for several of your colleagues and the rarely seen director, _Max Reinhardt_, positively comment after the show. Despite the praise, Reinhardt's presence makes you nervous – he owns and directs a multitude of stages all over the metropolis, which is why he never shows up unless something out of the ordinary is happening. Because the job at the Komödie is insubstantial to your financial well-being, you never bothered to care about the stage's situation – has it maybe run out of funds? Has some of the more biting commentary on current social situations in the comedies performed here finally led to some serious repercussions? You would hate to lose this job just when you have finally started to fully enjoy it. Neither are you particularly familiar with the rest of the ensemble – perhaps their financial situations are direr than yours? This stage might be their sole source of income, or they might have a family in need of feeding.

After you have made sure to very politely thank Mr Reinhardt for his proclamation of approval, you tip-toe away from him and prepare to silently retreat from the theatre as to not be present when he has to break bad news to his employees that actually depend on him. You halt in your movement when you hear a loud noise behind you, most definitely caused by a plenitude of voices. Were you not fast enough and Mr Reinhardt has already made his announcement? As you make effort to correctly analyse the noise behind you, you close your eyes and try to focus on your hearing. The voices seem excited, but not in the bad way. They are … cheering? What are they cheering for?

A stage aid is the first one to notice you sneaking around the theatre. He raises an eyebrow at you and discreetly pretends to not have seen you acting so weird. With a nod of his head, he indicates that you should go check out whatever is happening around Mr Reinhardt. You want to thank him, but you get the impression that he is a man of very few words, so you just give him a very earnest nod of the head before you head off towards the source of the noise.

You have not even reached the backstage area where everyone seems to have gathered when you hear the first pop of a champagne bottle. Most obviously, there is reason for the ensemble to celebrate – this instantly puts your mind at ease, for it had once again leapt into its old habit of always assuming the worst. When you finally catch sight of the backstage area, you notice that there are a group of people in the centre of the celebration, but you only know them by sight. You know they're part of the main ensemble that does the evening shows but you that's all you know about them. Are they celebrating a week with particularly high revenue? A good review of their show in an important news paper?

One of the men within the group of main ensemble actors is suddenly lifted by his peers and carried towards the exit of the theatre. You conclude that the celebration must be because of him, even if both his role and his name yet elude you. The rest of both the matinee and the evening ensemble follow suit as the celebration moves out of the theatre and you find yourself swept up in the movement. Somewhere along the line, one of your matinee colleagues that you are actually familiar with appears by your side.

"Down for the celebration? I had not pegged you as the type, Paige!"

"I really have no clue what we are celebrating, I just … I … I got swept up.", you reluctantly admit.

"You don't know? It's Hagen's birthday! As you quite probably know, he's the main act of the evening. His birthday is kind of a big thing. And there is this bar that Reinhardt reserves for birthday parties, so this is where we are headed. You are coming along, right?"

"Oh, most certainly!" A birthday party seems to be perfectly in line with your generally cheery mood today, so you trail along with the partiers despite having little idea of who Hagen actually is.

The mentioned bar must be really close to the theatre because no one in the party makes any sort of effort to hail a taxi. Mr Reinhardt has disappeared as swiftly as he had appeared. You happily trot along with everyone; you had no plans for the evening anyway. However, uncertainty begins to resonate within your chest as your company makes a sharp right at the _Gedächtniskirche _and walks onto Tauentzienstraße. Are they headed to … that district? That district that you have not dared set foot into for the last two months?

Nobody that is currently in your company knows that you have ever even been here, and much less what happened to you here. There is no need for them know. You feel foolish and vulnerable when you think back to the incident at the hotel. When you first started to work at the Komödie, you were even reluctant about simply walking past the hotel on your way to work – by now you have found a route to work that does not lead by the hotel. A lump of feelings forms in your throat and slowly sinks to the bottom of your stomach. You are filled with regret and disappointment and just a hint of longing that weigh so heavy on your frame that you have to steady yourself as to not slouch forward. A quick glance around tells you that no one has noticed your discomfort. You intend to keep it that way.

Your companions start to break out in a birthday song as you draw nearer and nearer to the area where your fears and bad memories conglomerate. In order to distract yourself, you join the singing and soon find yourself leading the others' voices into the next song, and another one after that. Any passer-by must be under the impression that the lot of you are already drunk beyond reason and you spot a few people discreetly changing to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Between two songs, somebody hands you one of the already half-emptied champagne bottle and you take a healthy swig to loosen your vocal chords. You keep telling yourself that there is no need to be nervous, no need to be anxious – the district itself won't remember you. Berlin's nightlife is as thrilling and captivating as it unsteady and fleeting. The city sees an impressive amount of tourists each day and everything about it has an air of living for the very moment. No one will know who you are; you were not even a regular customer of these clubs, you only dabbled in the experience a few times.

As you delve once again into the maze of little streets that was scenario to your previous adventures, a strange sense of nostalgia washes over you. You glance around to see whether there have been any changes to the bars and clubs, restaurants and cafés. Nothing seems out of place, everything is just as you remember it from two months ago – taking into account the fact that you were drunk and disoriented half the times that you passed through here. Your face is in conflict with itself because you cannot decide on either smiling or grimacing in terror as you watch the celebrators walking ahead of you turning into Kleistraße. You had not meant to be back here of all places that fast.

The sight of the street sign feels like a punch to the stomach and immediately knocks any positive sense of remembrance out of you. Within the blink of an eye, you are back to the fateful night – you see yourself turning into this street with Maren, you see yourself setting foot into the Verona-Lounge, you see disaster unfold. It takes all the effort the actress within you can muster to retain a somewhat plain facial expression and not give away your discomfort to anyone in the immediate area. Is the celebration seriously to be had at the Verona-Lounge? Under your skin, your pulse hammers away fast and relentlessly as your inner tension rises.

In your mind, there is no question as to whether she stills frequents that bar. Of course she does. The bar was her turf to begin with. The turf of her kind. You had been a newcomer, an outsider, an intruder even. Within a single night, you managed to step into her life and fall right out of it again. Chances are you left very little in the way of an impression on her. Most of the time, you had acted awkward and awestruck. That was your chance, and you failed it on a most epic scale. She was in all likeliness back to her usual ways within the next day, and here you are, still avoiding even the slightest memory of that night. It makes you feel pathetic and weak, yet you see no way to remedy that.

Nobody around you seems to have taken any notice of the storm of feelings trashing about inside you, and they continue their journey completely undeterred – continue it past the entrance of the Verona-Lounge. A breath you didn't know you were holding leaves your lungs as everyone simply walks by the door of the café as if it was just any other door; and to them, it probably is. There are no questions about your well-being, no backhanded comments on your spectacular failure with Emily, nothing at all.

The simple mention of the name Emily already sends your mind reeling. You had not even dared to think of the name lately, much less so to actually speak it. Within your mind, the name rolls off of your tongue so easily that you cannot keep yourself from silently mouthing it. A bitter smile blooms on your face. Imagining how affairs could have been handled between the two of you is filling you with remorse and painful regret. You try to swallow all the feelings building up in you with one heavy gulp. It almost works.

Thankfully, your fellow merrymakers are now providing you with distraction again for they seem to have reached their destination. Somebody makes a whooping noise that finally makes you take in your surroundings again after your eyes were entirely out of focus for the entire time you walked this street. In front of you is a corner bar that you assume to be where you are headed. Its exterior is most unassuming, with blacked out windows that allow no peeking inside and the whole thing seems to be very small. A sign above the entrance names the bar _"Mali and Igel"_ while a sign on the entrance door informs you that the place is closed for a private party. Since nobody minds the sign at all, you assume that the private party in question is the birthday party you are about to attend.

In front of the door, your little party starts to form a queue while the first of you already squeeze into the tiny entrance. Being the good Englishwoman that you are, you readily fall into the queue and wait in silence as it moves forward. The entrance truly cannot be spacious, for people in front of you take what feels like an eternity to get in. You empty the champagne bottle that has been dangling forgotten in your hand for quite a while now, out of sheer impatience. Once you near the single door of the establishment, you hear very pleasant piano music floating out of the building. The tune makes you want to sing along, because you believe to recognise it as the melody to a recent _Gassenhauer_. A few seconds of more intense listening later you realise that you had misheard the melody and are glad to not have broken into an unfitting song in the middle of the street.

Finally, there is no one left in the queue in front of you and you gingerly step into the club's antechamber. Instantly, you are reminded of your first visit to the Toppkeller. Just like in the Topp, a table manned by two impressive Bubis awaits you upon entrance. Their attire is identical; their hands are adorned with big diamond rings, their eyes with heavy eye shadow. This time around, there are no cigars, though. These Bubis have way more than cigars. In their laps is seated one feisty but limber looking young girl each. They wear negligées that are so transparent they might as well be completely uncovered by fabric. With the gazes of all four women in the antechamber trained on you, you try very intently to not look as taken aback as you are. One of the Bubis beckons you over to her with a nod of her head and you follow obediently.

More blood rises to your head and flushes your cheeks as both Bubis begin to rub the clearly visible nipples of the girls in their laps as you step up to the desk. The Bubi that beckoned you over fixes you with a stern look, and asks for your name in a manner that sounds like barking rather than speaking. You give her your name with a shaky voice and watch her run her brawny finger over a list that she had lying on her table. That is a guest list, your realise and in the same moment, you realise that there is no way you are on that list. You simply tagged along as everyone else in the company started to get going and you followed blindly. Now you feel very stupid and very much like an intruder upon a party that you were never invited to. The silence from the list-checking Bubi only alarms you further.

You are already planning a way to gracefully duck out of the club and discreetly leave when the Bubi suddenly looks up from her paper. She again fixes you with a look, without forgetting to rub the nipple of her companion for even a single second, and tells you to enter. Unable to comprehend why you would be on the guest list to a party you first heard about 30 minutes ago, you just stare at her in confusion. In a more angry tone, she tells you that you are an invited guest and to proceed inside. This time, you numbly follow the order and simply let your legs lead you into the club. You presume it's a good thing that you were allowed into a party with guest list, but still find it all odd.

The atmosphere in the club you enter is dense, most likely caused by how small the room is. Every piece of furniture seems to have been placed with intent and no piece of décor is in excess. It exudes a very exclusive, if not outright aristocratic air. Apart from the members of your little birthday party, there are less than a dozen other patrons present and the total number of people in the premise does not exceed fifty. A number of small, round tables have been grouped together to accommodate for your Komödien colleagues. You take your time to round the tables and personally congratulate the celebrated Hagen and introduce yourself to him. He thanks you politely but shows little interest in carrying on a conversation, so you sit down next to a more familiar ensemble member and believe that your deed to Hagen for this evening has been done.

"Almost everyone in here is actually a hot sister, you know," the actor sitting next to you whispers in your ear. "Except for us, of course." He flashes you a charming smile.

"Is that so," you reply with all the bravado you can muster. It is not a lot of bravado. "What are we doing, then, in a bar for hot sisters? Since we are not hot sisters." You wonder whether it is him or yourself that you want to convince of this statement.

"Mr Reinhardt is good friends with one of the owners, you see. This place is usually only for women but when Mr Reinhardt arranges a birthday party, men are welcome here. They say," he notably lowers his voice and leans in closer to you, "that this owner is _Jewish_. But you should see her! A true beauty, that one. Such a shame she already has a lady partner. The two of them own this place together. I'm most certain that we will get to see them tonight."

Excitement bubbles up within you. In all your fear and shame, you have forgotten just how entertaining and thrilling the women-loving parallel world of Berlin can be. And you have pushed aside rather violently the thought that you feel you are one of them. One of the hot sisters. You try to swallow the anxiety that suddenly appeared in you but your throat is tight, as if somebody were holding a rope to it. With a chuckle you try to cover the gagging noise your failed attempt at swallowing produced. After a sip from your cocktail glass, you manage to carry on the conversation and not give more of your discomfort away to your conversational partner. The moment dissipates as swiftly as it had come.

It takes you a while to notice that the clientele has changed over the last hours. Although they were initially welcome, most of the men in your birthday party, including Hagen, have left by now. Out of the corner of your eye, you had noticed that the waitresses displayed a fairly open favouritism towards the female guests – their drinks were served much quicker than those for the gentlemen, and you believe that the glasses were always less completely filled when men received them. You suppose that despite the friendship between Mr Reinhardt and the bar owners, this is how the bar ensures it stays true to its _identity as hot sister bar_ – but you are not sure how you feel about this tactic of theirs.

Among the patrons are more women now, and by the looks of it, most of them identify as hot sisters. Time has crept by you without notice and you have trouble to determine what time of day is it, although you suspect that the sun has already sunk above Berlin. Both the voices and the music that fill the room have grown louder, the whole is bar brimming with an intangible energy that pervades the entire air around you. You are swept up in the general atmosphere of fervent mood and cheerful expectation – in outlook to what event, you have no idea, but you do not find it in yourself to care. Without getting overly intoxicated again, you find yourself in animated discussions with complete strangers, enthralled in the stories they tell and eager to tell them stories of your own.

The people you talk to are writers and poets, they are composers and orchestra conductors, they are newspaper editors and political activists. It seems that some of Berlin's finest have gathered here, tonight in this bar, and you are honoured to find yourself among them. If the bar dabbled in the aristocratic earlier this night, it has now fully and gloriously embraced the aristocratic. The music played by the pianist contains an increasing number of hot jazz pieces but always remains tasteful and is never so loud as to drown out conversation. You inwardly curse yourself for not finding this place three years ago, when you first moved here. It is most enjoyable and you are certain that you would have supple opportunity to befriend influential people of Berlin's artistic scene here.

You're immersed in conversation about _Josephine Baker_ and her impact on modern Berlin culture when you notice a shift in the music. Everyone else seems to notice it as well, for plenty of eyes turn towards the pianist. The tune that just started seeks to strike a balance somewhere between sentimental and sultry; it's most definitely a love song. One by one, the audience starts to clap their hands in time to the melody and you reluctantly join in with them. Once virtually everyone in the bar has focused their attention on the piano, a female voice starts to sing lyrics to the music.

Frantic looking all over the room reveals no source for the sound to you, ever growing in volume – a beautiful contralto, singing a song about longing and forbidden desires in slow, heavy, emotion-laden German words. It's when she begins the chorus for a second time that you spot her. She emerges next to the piano, from where you cannot tell, and immediately all eyes are on her. Her eyes and hair are dark brown, her brows thick and expressive, her gaze the very definition of seductive. Stylish, up-to-date French fashion accentuates her lean frame in all the right ways; she cannot be much older than thirty.

At an encouraging wave of her hand, the audience joins her in song. Without knowing the lyrics to the tune, you try to sing along as best you can; the woman's appearance has left you with barely any recollection of the already once repeated chorus. You barely notice when the voices around you fade away and only a few notes on the piano are left to hear; it's only when the crowd breaks out in applause and hollering that you regain your composure. No one in the room is cheering for the pianist, or for the singing, or for anything but the woman, you are sure of it. She is known to and popular among the guests, and she seems to have a certain influence over this bar to explain her special entrance. It takes you a second to connect the dots, but then it's crystal clear to you – this must be one of the elusive, aforementioned owners that you were basically promised to meet tonight. You resist the urge to slap your own forehead for being such a slow thinker and instead watch the woman make her way into the crowd. It takes but a second for her to be completely swarmed by men and women alike, and you quickly lose sight of her.

After the spectacular introduction of the owner, the music in general has changed somewhat and now there are more contemporary love songs to sing along to and more quick jazz pieces to dance to. Some people have taken to dancing in one of bars corners that is not filled with plush arm chairs and instead illuminated with a red flashing traffic light. Their dancing is quite different from the dancing you have witnessed and partaken in so far during your stints in Berlin night life – it's subtle and very toned down, with more quiet grace than loud shaking of limbs. A few of them dance a very stylish version of the Charleston, others are engaged in a beautiful pair dance. Over all, they are a very nice thing to look at it and you find yourself gyrating slowly closer to the dance floor.

You somehow run into the very people that you had been talking to before the woman sang her song on your way to the dance floor, and it is quickly forgotten as you once again discuss sex-appeal and its morale with a handful of most pleasant party-goers. In fact, you are so immersed in conversation that you do not notice her as she approaches. Only as she stands directly besides you do your eyes fall onto the beautiful owner lady, and they stay glued there as the conversation around you dies down and everyone looks at you expectantly.

"Good evening," her beautiful contralto rolls off her tongue easily and reminds you of velvet as it just as easily rolls into your ears and your mind, "Have we met before?"

"I don't think so, no," your response is immediate and surprisingly coherent.

"Allow me to introduce myself then," she extends her slender hand with perfectly manicured nails towards you, "they call me Mali and I run this establishment together with my partner. I'm most pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise," you had guessed correctly and are starting to get a bit nervous under her pretty, inviting gaze as you shake her hand, "My name is Paige McCullers and this is my first visit here. A very beautiful establishment you run, I must say."

"Paige McCullers? The name rings a bell, yet I am not sure why yet – oh, do not tell me! I want to guess myself!" A smirk plays over her delicate face and wrinkles the faint crowfeet by her eyes; and you find them incredibly attractive, "Your first time here, you say? Then I absolutely must dance with you! You are not opposed to dancing with women, now are you?"

"N-No, of course not," you stammer. Her question was purely rhetorical; she knew the answer before she asked it and you feel exposed, as if she could see right into you. As the owner of a lesbian bar, she probably has her ways of telling and they seem to have told her correctly. Still you try to find some sense of dignity and continue, "I'd be honoured to have this dance with you."

"Marvellous," Mali chirps as she takes you by the elbow and leads you a few feet toward the other dancers. She bothers not with waiting for the next song to start but right away initiates a slow, close dance with you. It takes a few moments for your mind and feet to catch up to the current events but once they do, the dance is actually easily to do. After a few uncoordinated steps, the two of you are easily sashaying over the floor in time to the music. You relax more into Mali's embrace with each tact and she beams at you a radiant smile.

"Theatre," Mali says the single word and tilts her pretty head at you.

"Excuse me?"

"You work in theatre, right? I am certain to have seen you on stage before."

"I do, in fact. I work for a musical theatre stage in central Berlin and I'm also with Reinhardt's Komödie. He invited me here tonight."

"Oh, I know who you are now," Mali flashes you a devil smile, "you are the dapper one in the tuxedo. Should have worn it tonight, you can make a woman dream in that garment."

"I'll remember that for next time." Hopefully the red traffic light hides your blush – the more people call you dapper in your tuxedo, the more you are inclined to believe they actually have a point.

"Why have you not yet taken the stage here, though? We would all love to hear you sing; it would be the most grand thing!" Her excitement at the same time worries you and touches you in a way. It is still very far and few in between that people recognise you because of your stage fame and so far, this is still an event that fills you with plenty of pride.

Mali closes her arms more tightly around you, intensifying the fully body contact between the two of you. She has to be one of the most charismatic people you've ever met, and you are already eating out of her hand – a fact that she most likely is highly aware of, for she strikes you as not only charming and beautiful but also smart and cunning. After all, she is a seemingly successful business owner in a time where women are barely trusted with to handle a cooking pot, much less actual trade and money.

"I suppose I could do that."

The hushed 'thank you' right next to your ear is all the affirmation you need, and you walk up to the piano looking as determined as you can make your air-headed self appear.

The pianist looks at you when you draw up near to his instrument and never misses a single note as he asks you, "Mali asked you to sing? Which song would you like to sing?"

"Uh, I'm not entirely sure … I had not prepared anything. Do you have sheets for something, maybe?"

"Just have a look through the sheets I have right here, there should be something in there for you."

Singing purely from sheet is not actually your biggest strength but you are more than willing to try, so you flip through the sheet music spread across the piano top in search of something that looks easy to sing. The name of one song strikes you as somehow familiar, even if you have no idea where you might have heard it before, and you try to hum the melody to yourself. It seems simple enough to try, so you give the pianist a signal to play this song next. You brace yourself in face of your own nerves. With all your stage experience, you know that it will fall away from you like a dropped curtain once you actually have an audience.

The pianist draws out the finishing notes of his current song and gives a questioning look. You give him an assured nod and grab the sheet more tightly, holding it like a shield between you and the rest of the bar. Among the many people, you spot Mali who is now standing by the bar with a drink in her hand and looks at you expectantly. Your eyes close and the world around you disappears for a moment as you draw in a long breath and begin to sing.

Only a few words have left your mouth when the first heads already turn towards you. An eerie sense of calmness settles within you as you become aware that you have the attention of the audience, that you have your stage. Soon, people are starting to clap along, to sing along, to yell their approval. You must have instinctively chosen a popular song, because a lot of people in attendance know the lyrics by heart. With each syllable of the song that leaves your lips, it seems more and more familiar to you, as if you were getting to know a long lost lover all over again. When you reach the chorus and the entire venue is singing along, you suddenly remember when, where and how you first heard the song before.

An amazon leading a dance around a room. A glass of cognac. Stefan telling you to heed the amazon's orders. Fondling. The Black Mass. Toppkeller. And this song. This was the song everyone in the Topp sang when they began their Black Mass. You remember how proudly everyone belted out those lyrics, and you finally realise what exactly you are singing right now – the_ German anthem of all gays and lesbians_. A sudden attack of dizziness threats to make you stumble backwards but you manage to remain upright and not miss a single note. What have you done? Singing this song in front of everyone is such a clear message, you might as well have outed yourself in front of the whole bar. And at least one person in this room knows exactly who you are. She looks very much pleased behind her drink, and not for a single second takes her eyes off you.

You struggle to keep your calm as you finish the song and close your eyes again for the last few words. When you open them again, the crowd is cheering you on loudly and a few women storm towards you to engulf you in a group embrace. There is no staring, no malicious whispering, nothing. Nobody has taken any special notice of your song choice, everybody just congratulates you on your courage to sing in front of others. Your head swims as you step away from the piano and try to merge with the general crowd again. Mali has disappeared from her spot and you do not see her anywhere.

It only takes a short while for everyone to swiftly forget about your stunt by the piano again, and nobody brings it up again. A few other people, most of them self-identified actors or opera singers, come forward and perform songs after you. Themes of homosexuality are prevalent in many of them and it seems to increase the enthusiasm of the crowd, rather than detract from it. Slowly, you come to understand what places like the Mali and Igel signify to the homosexual population. They are their save haven. The only place where they can dare to openly speak about who they are and whom they love, the only place where do not have to fear repercussions for simply being who they are. Theirs is a tight-knit community; most of them seem somehow familiar with each other and they probably know that if they cannot trust each other with their secret they can trust no one. You can only hope to one day be part of such a community.

Mali keeps up her spiel of coercing woman after woman into dancing with her and then moving on to the next one. You cannot help but wonder if her partner does not take any offense to her openly flirtatious behaviour. Your concerns about possibly having outed yourself are long gone and you have had surprisingly little problem to reintegrate into the conversations taking place all over the small room. Eventually, it is your bladder that has you remove yourself from the friendly company you have found yourself in and excuse yourself to the bathroom. Once you re-emerge from there, you cannot seem to find the people you were conversing with when you left – or anyone you know for that matter. Did they leave? Part of you volunteers that it's already fairly late so you should probably call it a night and head home – but another, much louder part of you is still out for enjoyment and simply refuses to leave just yet. Naturally, you listen to the louder part and head to the bar for another drink.

Your forearms are not completely rested on the top of the breast-high bar yet when a glass is already slid in your direction. Confused, you look at the glass and then in the direction that the glass came from. Sitting on a high stool not far from you is a woman about your age. Also looking at this woman is the bartender, who obviously had just made that drink. The bartender is much less confused then you are, though, and simply rises an eyebrow at the woman that passed you the drink.

"That one for her and another one for you, I presume?" the bartender asks after a moment of silence has passed between the three of you.

The woman across from her mouths a "Please" and gives the bartender a look that reminds you of a lost little puppy. When the bartender turns around to prepare the requested drink, the woman's attention shifts to you. She easily slides off her stool and approaches you; her movements look at the same time silky and fierce. Like many other patrons here, the woman's aura is very refined and you are already willing to bet she is just as cultured as everyone else in here, without ever having exchanged a word with her.

"Hey," her voice is a little raw and you instantly take a liking to the rawness, "you don't mind a little drink, do you? I promised I did not drink from that glass, it was freshly made just as you came to the bar and I'd like you to have it."

"Uh huh, yes, of course," you reach for the drink and are about to take it to your lips when you remember your manners, "thank you very much." You set the drink back down onto the top of the bar and wait politely until she holds her freshly made drink in her hand. The woman has big, round eyes the colour of chestnut that contrast with her pale, blemish-free skin. Brunette hair falls loosely onto her shoulders; her slim frame is adorned by a long dress that makes her appear even taller than she is. Her eyes seem ever vigilant and they don't stop mustering you for a split second.

She raises her glass to you, encouraging you to toast with her but you're momentarily frozen as your eyes rake over her slender arms up to her delicate fingers. You can feel her eyes following your gaze, she definitely registered the moment of attraction but you do not find it in yourself to care. It is about time for you to stop fretting over your sexual identity and you suppose that this is a most suited situation for you to do just that. After all, the woman made the first move by buying you a drink. Your glass clinks against hers with a crystal clear sound.

"Quite the performance of the Lilac Song that you gave," her voice is flat but you can tell that she does not mean to simply comment on your singing.

"I'm flattered, but I must admit that the song is still very new and unfamiliar to me," if the woman wants to talk metaphors, you are more than willing to speak her tongue.

"My, that is a shame. It would have certainly enriched our little get-togethers here had you already graced us with your performances more often. I take it you have not yet performed this song to many audiences, in that case?"

The tips of your ears pink at her question and she looks most pleased with herself. "Indeed, I have only one attempt at the song below my belt as of now. However, in that particular case, I'm afraid that stage fright got the better of me and I was never able to conclude the performance."

The woman's eyebrows rise and she clicks her tongue. Although you were certain before that there has never been a more intense gaze in this world than hers, it turns even more intriguing as she takes in this new piece of information you just revealed about yourself. By now, you are convinced that her eyes are powered by some sort of electric power and would glow on their own in a dark room. You cannot look away from her and have to actively fight the urge to gyrate closer to her.

"It's such a blasphemy to let true talent go undetected. I'm not a promoter, or a theatre owner, or any of that sort. But if you were willing to give more private performances, I'd be the first to hang upon your lips."

In disbelieve, you stare at the woman that is now but a few inches away from you. Did she just ask you out? Have you just been asked out by a woman for the first time in your life? You almost do not trust your ears because this scenario has been previously unimaginable to you. That people should know you for a hot sister – without shunning you for it. That a woman should be interested in you, even ask you out. But the most unbelievable of all things is how easy this felt. Like a simple, natural process. You remain baffled but manage to find your voice again.

"I would … certainly be open about future opportunities if such promising business contacts such as yourself were to ever seek me out."

That sounded a lot smoother than you had expected of yourself and you smile in pride to yourself until you remember just how much this silly behaviour cancels out the bravado you just displayed. The woman seems to not have noticed, though, because she is now scribbling some numbers on a napkin with a pencil she produced out of her purse. When she is finished, she hands you the napkin with a knowing smile. Your eyes fall down to the piece of fabric in your hands and recognise the string of numbers as a _telephone number_.

"Just in case you ever have any … business inquiries." Her smile says the she knows you are going to take her up on her offer, and your wide open, marvelling eyes say the same. Just as elegantly as she had come close to you, the woman starts to remove herself from immediate proximity.

"Wait," you say a bit too loudly and a bit too suddenly when you realise that she is about leave, "Could you please tell me who you are?"

A smirk plays over the woman's otherwise so graceful features.

"I'm a Hastings, and that is all you will need to know."

* * *

**A/N:**

[Komödie am Kudamm] Officially Theater und Komödie am Kurfürstendamm. One of Berlin's most well-known private theatres, together with its companion stage, the Theater am Kudamm. Opened in 1921 in rooms previously used by impressionist artist group "Berliner Sezession". Noted back then for its very modern, stylish architecture. Was actually only taken under the direction of Max Reinhardt in 1928, but I had to be a bit liberal and creative with the dates for this one to work 8or probably so, as sources are conflicting on this one, esp because most authors fail to clearly between the Theater und Komödie). Was at this point in time showing a selection revues and biting political satires, many of them written by Jewish people – unsurprisingly, the Komödie would fall on hard times during Nazi reign but does still exist today.

[hot, long summer] Paige is probably in an overly joyful mood when she is thinking this or she is completely shitting herself. There are no long, hot summers in Germany. There barely are any summers at all. The way we Germans describe the passing of seasons here is "asshole, asshole, asshole, winter".

[Max Reinhardt] Famous theatre owner, founder and director (1873-1943). One of the biggest players in Berlin's theatre scene from 1902 to 1933. The actors employed on his many stages were sometimes ridiculed as 'Reinhardt's circus' but were among the most well-known and well-respected performers of the town. Reinhardt, an Austrian Jew, was forced to flee Europe in 1937 and remained in the United States until his death.

[Gedächtniskirche] Full name Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, known as the memorial church in English. Big situated on Breitscheidplatz between Kurfürstendamm, Tauentzienstraße and Budapester Straße near Berlin Zoo station. Was mostly destroyed during Ally bombings of Berlin in WWII. The remains of it now serve as a memorial to the terrors of war. Also holds a Coventry Cross Of Nails (from the Coventry Cathedral that was destroyed by German bombs in 1940) as a sign of peace between once warring nations.

[Mali and Igel] One of the most exclusive lesbian clubs in Berlin, and among those that were clearly respected by all of the actual lesbian community (as opposed to places like the Toppkeller). A small, stylish affair with blacked out windows and lesbian erotic paintings (donated by wealthy patrons) on the wall. The 'closed for private party'-sign on the door is in fact a permanent fixture meant to deter unwelcome guests. The guest list control is often cited as the most memorable one in all of Berlin. The club was owned by lesbian couple Mali und Igel, and in fact often host to birthday parties by members of the Reinhardt ensemble. Mali was pretty garconne (more lesbian types to explain later!), said to be very beautiful and outgoing, while her gamine partner Igel was more of a background player. Mali was Jewish and was forced to flee Germany in 1933. Often misnamed as „Mali and Ingel" in English-language sources. The confusion is most likely due to the entrance sign being written in an old German handwriting on the one hand, and a lack of German language skill on the other hand. English-language sources assume that the actual name of Mali's partner is "Ingel" – when in reality, her name is Elsa and her nickname is "Igel" which means hedgehog. According to the maps of the Berlin quarter that hosts most of this story, this venue was but a few meters away from the Verona-Lounge. I have by now given up determining exact addresses for these places as this has proven to be an exercise in frustration.

[Gassenhauer] German word for popular songs, literally means 'alley beater'.

[Jewish] Although Berlin was one of the most liberal places in the entire world during the 1920ies and the Nazi terror reign was still far way (the NSDAP was an almost entirely unknown party up until 1930), anti-Semitism is also prevalent during Weimar days. Central Europe has a long history of varying degrees of anti-Semitism; during the 19th century it was especially strong in France rather than Germany. German anti-Semitism rapidly grew worse after losing WWI and the very hard days that befall Germany as a consequence of their loss. Jews were widely blamed for losing WWI, for gutting the ones impoverished by the war, and for the global economy crisis of the early 20ies. During the time that the Weimar republic was more or less stably working, its main forces were socialists, liberalists, and the Catholic central party, and anti-Semitism was present, yet not as bad as directly after the war. Once the Weimar republic was beginning to fail, its enemies lumped the main forces of Weimar together with Jews into what should become the quintessential idea of Germany's nemesis – one of the foundations of the NSDAP's ideology.

[identity as hot sister bar] Among Berlin's lesbian community – especially among those more involved with politics and idealism – venues such as the Toppkeller were heavily criticized for catering to male costumers for the sake of profit. A number of bars and clubs were exclusively open to female guests (such as the Café Dorian Grey) while others did admit men in the company of lesbian women but did not pay them much attention (like the Mali and Igel or the Verona-Lounge).

[Josephine Baker] Dancer, singer, and actress of world fame (1609-1975). During the mid-1920ies, Baker was touring Europe with a show of singing and erotic dancing that would be the first step on her latter to fame. Often credited with being the first to introduce the English word "Sex-Appeal" to the German language.

[German anthem of all gays and lesbians] The song in question is "Das Lila Lied" (usually translated as 'The Lilac Song' or 'The Lavender Song', although it literally means 'The Purple Song'). Considered to be the first gay right anthem ever. Caberet song written in 1920 in light of the first conference for sexual reform at Magnus Hirschfeld's famous sex museum. Heavily influenced by Hirschfeld's idea of the homosexuals as a 'third sex'. In this first gay rights movement during the 1920ies, both gays and lesbian used purple as their colour. Only after 1945, gays would become associated with pink and lesbians plus feminists with purple. There is no recording of the full song, only of the chorus (for it was custom that only the chorus was sung at lesbian clubs, which is what Paige probably did).

Here's a YouTube link to a German recording of the song: watch?v=jjvp06ibH3A

And the English Wikipedia entry has both German and English lyrics: wiki/Das_Lila_Lied

[telephone number] At the time this story is set, telephones are still relatively expensive and not especially common in private households. When Paige receives the phone number, she immediately knows that she is talking to someone rich and possibly influential. In 1928, the W28 was introduced to market – the first telephone to become a common sight in households. (Wikipedia article for those of you that are extra nerdy and capable of reading German: wiki/W28 )


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